Manaconda

by Sherri L. King

  Desperate, filled with hunger, the symbiot had fought itself as it tried to comfort Cadan into the transition. But the hunger had been impossible to deny. Before Cadan could give a care for the other pods he had searched first for blood. Not the evil, tainted blood of the father who watched with calculated greed, but the power of innocent life, lust, passion, laughter. He had gorged on the blood of the villagers, never killing one, but leaving them weak, weary, as he feasted.

  Finally, days later he returned to the cavern. Many of the casks had been destroyed, broken open, their symbiots gone. Those that remained were damaged, the life forms inside slowly fading from existence. The race to save them had been filled with despair, yet he had done it.

  Twelve of the beings had been taken by Mordan and the Dark Knights that had been the scourge of the countryside. Another dozen were left, protected within the frail pods until Cadan had been able to find them hosts worthy of their honor.

  But even that had taken time, because by then Mordan and his Knights had destroyed the village. The people had been drained of their blood, men and women alike cruelly raped and abused as the evil minds that had taken the symbiots used their power for their own ends.

  Cadan had spent his life fighting those Knights and searching for the remaining groups of beings that had come to Earth so long ago searching for peace. He had found hosts for those that Aldon had led. Two other groups were hidden safely now, until hosts could be found for them as well. But still, the Master was missing. A group of three pods, the most powerful of the beings, the greatest warriors ever known to walk upon land, and they had disappeared without a trace.

  It was those three that Cadan searched for now, because only one of the most powerful warriors could destroy Mordan and his group. Cadan had fought for centuries, but there was no way to save the symbiots until he managed to repair more of the pods. Killing Mordan’s men meant destroying those symbiots if the pods weren’t ready for them. The difficulty in his task was making him insane. Being without the backup he needed, namely the other warriors he had fought with, was making it worse.

  It seemed there were more groups of the symbiots than even Aldon had known of, because suddenly, the presence of vampires across the world was being whispered of. He had sent the others to investigate those rumors. Were they vampire, or were they warrior?

  He didn’t bother knocking when he came to Bliss’s door. He mentally ordered it to open and Aldon supplied the force that did just that.

  He walked into a nightmare. There was no blood, no screams, no weapons or battle. There was soft, curvy female staring at him from the couch, her legs splayed as she slowly worked the shaft of a dildo into her overexcited pussy.

  It might seem like a dream come true, but the jealousy that flared inside him for the inanimate object was more than he could contain. Before he could stop himself, before Aldon could caution him in regards to his temper, he enforced the mental demand that it be gone. Out of his sight. Away from the soft, tight channel he had marked as his own.

  Instantly the dildo was pulled from her pussy. The soft sucking sound of her flesh as it exited had his blood pumping furiously through his body as the adult device was flung against a far wall.

  Bliss’s eyes rounded with fear, then with anger as she moved to jump to her feet. She wasn’t going anywhere as far as he was concerned. Before she could do more than lever herself up on her elbows he was there. His head pushed between her thighs, his lips latching onto her swollen clit as his hands gripped her hips and held her in place.

  She was his woman. His pussy. He would not let her find her pleasure without him. It was unnatural. It was wrong. His cock was throbbing like an open wound beneath his pants, demanding his possession of her. His mouth watered at the taste of her, spicy and hot, more addicting than the most lust-filled blood he had ever taken.

  And speaking of blood. He could hear hers. It pounded through her veins with an edge of excitement that only spurred his own higher, reinforced the claim he was making on her, and assured him that in taking her, he would be pleasuring her rather than forcing her.

  Her juices were thick upon the satiny flesh of her cunt. Her clit was hard, engorged; the smell of her need was like a potent aphrodisiac that had his head spinning. She was soft, slick and so hot upon his lips and tongue that he felt his heart sear with the sensation.

  “For me,” he growled against the sensitive little bud. “Come for me. Only for me.”

  His lips suckled at her, his tongue lashed at the throbbing nubbin as she writhed in his arms, crying out her pleasure.

  Yes. Her pleasure. He could feel it pumping through her body, but he needed more. So much more. He needed her screaming. He needed to know, to reinforce upon her that her pleasure came from him. Only him. He alone would bring her to climax. Not a toy or another man, or her own fingers, only him.

  He moved one hand between her thighs, pressed three fingers together and nudged at the slick opening of her vagina. She bucked against him. He held tightly to his patience, struggled to prepare her easily, but the sight of her fucking herself had stolen his control. He pressed inside her forcibly, feeling the soft tissue give way, hug his fingers, ripple around them in response and grow ever wetter.

  “Cadan. Oh God, I can’t stand it,” she cried out desperately.

  Yes, this was how he wanted her. Maddened with the carnal demand streaking through her body. He wanted her as insane for the coming climax as he was to taste it. To feel it flowing from her tight pussy and filling his mouth.

  He thrust inside her hard and deep, glorying in her cries and finally, blessedly, her demanding screams.

  “Damn you. Fuck me. Fuck me, Cadan, now.” Her hips were rising and falling quickly, following the movements of his fingers as he increased the pressure against her throbbing clit and edged her into the release she needed so desperately.

  She exploded. Her cunt tightened on the plunging digits, her juices flowing eagerly as he pulled his fingers back and capped his lips over the small opening, his tongue plunging forcefully inside her as he tore at the snap and zipper of his too-tight leather pants.

  She was still shuddering from the force of her release when he rose above her.

  “I’m sorry,” he groaned, aligning his cock with the center of her body. “I’m sorry. I can’t wait.”

  He rose to his knees, his fingers wrapping around the width of his erection, watching as the engorged head tucked between her delicate pink pussy lips. The folds of flesh spread around the purpled head, molding to it as the thick syrup of her juices heated it further.

  He was shaking with his need to push inside her, to take her hard and deep as he had earlier.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he gritted out, his hands gripping her thighs and raising them as he spread her wide. He wanted, needed to watch as he possessed her.

  “Damn you, I’m going to cut your heart out if you don’t do it,” she cried out passionately, filling his heart with emotions he was unaccustomed to. Tenderness, affection—no, more than affection. Deeper. Stronger. The emotions filling him were powerful, intense. And the lust was making him insane.

  He could contain his own needs, he had done so for years, but he couldn’t fight hers as well.

  He pressed inside her. He didn’t slowly work his cock in as he would have done at any other time. Instead, he forged inside, gritting his teeth at the tight heat, the rippling caress against his overly sensitive cock. Pushing into her was exquisite. It was paradise—her cries as she writhed beneath him, her demands that he fill her, take her harder. The tight, wet heat…

  Cadan’s head fell back, his eyes closing as the pleasure swamped him. He pumped inside her, burying his cock to the hilt, groaning at the utter complete ecstasy of having her take every hard, thick inch he had to give her.

  Gripping her hips, he lifted her, going to his back on the couch as he pulled her over him, never losing possession of the hot grip around his erection as he changed the position.

  He
stared up at her, grinning wickedly at the passionate confusion on her flushed face. When his legs were stretched out fully, he held her hip in one hand and pressed against her stomach with the other.

  “Lay back,” he whispered, guiding her to lie flat along his legs as he gripped her knees. “Give me your legs.”

  He guided her into the position, pulling her legs over his chest as she stretched out on top of his. He snapped his teeth together at the incredible tightness and friction of her rippling pussy along his cock.

  She was whimpering now, shuddering, her hips rotating as his cock began to slide more fully into the uppermost portion of her vagina. There, where the thickness of the head or the shaft didn’t matter unless the position was just right to apply the correct amount of pressure against her sensitive G-spot.

  Mewling, kittenish cries were coming from her now as sweat ran along his body. Holding back was killing him. Gripping her ankles in one hard hand he reached along her body until he found the little curl-covered patch of her mound and the swollen distention of her clit.

  “Now,” he muttered fiercely. “Now, baby…”

  He began pumping fiercely inside her as the tips of his fingers raked her clit. The extreme grip she had on his flesh kept his thrusts shallow but hard, driving into her, raking over the little bunch of nerves deep inside her convulsing flesh.

  “Oh God. Cadan…” Her voice rose as the sensations began to build.

  His fingers and hips moved faster. Harder.

  “Cadan. Oh God. It’s killing me. It’s killing…”

  He felt her orgasm then as he had never felt another’s. The muscles of her cunt clamped down, flexed, drawing his release from the head of his dick like the eruption of a geyser. His hoarse male shout mated with her feminine scream as she began to buck in his grip, orgasming with a violence that filled him with such a rush of male pride that his chest clenched with the emotion.

  They were shaking, shuddering. The hard blasts of his semen overflowed the tight confines of her clutching grip, the warmth of their mingled release flowing between them as they collapsed against the couch in exhaustion.

  Stud! Cerise’s thought, no matter the awe that filled it, jarred him from the euphoria that had wrapped around him.

  Go away. He didn’t have the strength or the energy to push her back.

  Our time is nearly up, Cadan. Regret emanated from her. We must get her agreement soon.

  Not yet. He didn’t want to spoil this. This connection, this bond, as he pulled Bliss back up his body, cradling her head against his chest as she attempted to regain her composure.

  His arms wrapped around her, sheltering her, holding her against the heart that had searched forever for her.

  “Not bad, stud,” she murmured against his chest.

  For one crazy moment he wondered if Cerise had disobeyed his mental commands to wait and had flowed into Bliss without his knowledge.

  There goes the glimmer of intelligence I thought I glimpsed before, Cerise mocked his thought.

  “Not bad yourself.” He ignored the inner voice as he pressed his lips to Bliss’s forehead gently. “Not bad at all, baby.”

  Chapter Ten

  Silence stretched around them for long moments before Bliss sighed deeply and pushed herself out of his embrace. She kept her face turned away from him, kept her fears to herself as she stood shakily, found her bearings and then walked to the chair where she had thrown her robe earlier.

  “So, what made you decide to come back?” she asked carefully.

  She had thought he was gone forever. A part of her had even been glad he had left. The information he had given her still hadn’t really sunk in. It was hard enough to believe that vampires existed to begin with. But vampires who refused to obey the rules she had read in countless books were even worse.

  She heard him moving behind her. He hadn’t even removed his pants and boots before taking her. He had done no more than push them below his well-rounded rear enough to give his cock freedom before he took her.

  She should have been insulted. Instead, the muscles of her stomach clenched in pleasure at the thought. This was so weird, she told herself caustically. As though there could be a future with a blood sucker.

  “I came back for you,” he finally answered, his voice soft. Gentle. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

  “Well, you sounded pretty determined not to.” She shrugged as she pushed her hair from her face, tucking a loose strand behind her ear absently. “You don’t seem the type to go back once you make up your mind.”

  She looked over at him. He sat on the edge of his couch, his elbows resting on his knees as his arms draped between them. His shirt was gone; his hard, tanned chest was broad, a scattering of coarse, dark hair marring the smooth perfection. A tattoo graced one of his muscular upper arms. A Celtic design that wrapped around the bulging bicep. It was incredibly sexy.

  “I’m not,” he said, his voice low, gentle. “And there is our problem, Bliss. I’ve decided I want you to keep me. I can’t let you go.”

  Shock held her rigid. She turned fully to him, staring into his somber expression in disbelief.

  “Keep you? The playboy vampire?” she asked him mockingly. “What kind of game are you playing here, Cadan? Whatever it is, I’m not in the mood for it.”

  She pushed her hands into the pockets of her robe. Her palms itched to smooth the long strands of his hair back from his face, to caress the sharp angles of his cheekbones, the fullness of his lower lip.

  He was becoming an addiction. One she could ill afford.

  “It’s no game.” He sighed roughly, watching her with a depth of emotion in his dark eyes that tugged at the feminine core of her soul. “I tried to walk away. To save you from my world, Bliss. A world I didn’t want forced on you, but one you won’t be able to escape now simply because of who you are.”

  “And what’s that?” She tilted her head curiously.

  He looked angry, but more at himself than at her.

  “A host,” he said regretfully. “Your body, mind and heart are all perfectly created to host a female symbiot, such as I currently have tormenting the hell out of my brain. This is what I wanted to save you from. From being like me. From terrifying you with the bond that’s already growing between us.”

  Bliss stilled her shudder as he watched her so seriously.

  “You know, when I asked for adventure and freedom, this wasn’t what I meant, Cadan,” she snapped. “A blazing affair. A trip abroad. A fucking cruise would have been nice. A vampire with a hero complex and a dick as thick as my wrist wasn’t what I was asking for.”

  She meant to shock him, but his grin was nothing less than sin.

  “You have a very delicate wrist, sweetheart,” he murmured. “I actually think it’s thicker than your wrist.”

  She wouldn’t doubt that in the least.

  “You aren’t allowed to bite my neck,” she told him fiercely. “I need my blood, I told you that already. And I’m sure as hell not into the taste of it myself. You can keep the little aggravation you have all to yourself.”

  He smiled wryly as he shook his head, watching her with a glimmer of amusement.

  “You felt it both times we were together, Bliss,” he told her. “You wanted it. You wanted my fangs buried in your neck, wanted to bite me just as fiercely as I needed you. You can’t deny it.”

  “The hell I can’t,” she snapped. She had no remorse in lying when it meant life or death. “You’re a mean, lean, fucking machine, Cadan. But becoming a corpse just isn’t my thing.”

  “I really must burn your reading material,” he chuckled. “You don’t die, Bliss. You aren’t a corpse. You can still walk in the sun, wear a cross and swim in a pool. Where these farcical rules came from I have no clue.”

  “You have to suck blood. That’s just gross,” she argued.

  “You want to suck my blood.” He stood to his feet, towering over her, his voice dropping, deepening with sensual undertones. “I can fee
l it. Your need to taste me, to know me. You want the freedom and the power, but even more, you want me.” He stepped closer, holding her mesmerized with the rough, sexual quality of his voice. “Deny it, Bliss. Go ahead and lie for both of us, because we both know that need is there inside you.”

  She really should voice the lie, but she couldn’t. She could only stare back at him, fighting herself more than him, terrified at the choices she wanted to make.

  “I wanted to be a lion tamer when I was a teenager. I grew out of that, too,” she finally snapped, moving away from him, watching him carefully.

  “And you think you will ‘grow out’ of this need you have for me now?” He was clearly laughing at her. “Sweetheart, it won’t happen. Take it from me. I’ve lived centuries and never known such powerful emotions as I do when I touch you, hear your voice, feel you touching me. I’ve fought it for nearly two months now, the same as you have. This isn’t just going to go away. You know better than that.”

  “I can hope,” she snarled back at him, hating the truth in his words. “Blood just isn’t my meal of choice, Cadan.”

  “And you believe this is all that sustains me?” he asked her incredulously. “Really, Bliss, you’ve seen me eat.”

  “Have I?” she asked him fiercely. “How do I know I have? You could have been doing that voodoo thing that vampires do. How do I know what I’ve seen?”

  Cadan growled. A sound of male frustration that almost, just almost, had her smiling. Her brothers did that around her often.

  “I wish I knew vampire voodoo.” He propped his hands on his hips as he watched her with brooding ire. “You wouldn’t be arguing with me. You would be eagerly taking this smart-assed excuse from an alien out of my head and into yours. And why I am even suggesting it boggles the mind. You make me crazy enough on my own.”