by Kate Baxter
He belonged to her and no one else.
Sasha would make sure he never had reason to think of another female ever again. She wanted him to crave her touch as she did his. Wanted to twine herself into his soul the way his had wound with hers. The flood of emotions she’d held back for so long crashed over her. Everyone deserved to be wanted. Needed. She’d gone too long being someone’s second choice. Hell, really not even a choice at all. She wanted to be someone’s first choice. Someone’s only choice. She wanted to be Ewan’s choice.
Sasha’s fang nicked the flesh near the hood of Ewan’s cock. He gripped Sasha’s hair tighter and a low growl gathered in his chest as he thrust deep. The natural salty taste of him mingled with the sweetness of his blood as Sasha’s mouth was flooded with jets of warmth. She bit down again, just enough to open another tiny puncture and Ewan’s hips bucked wildly as she greedily sucked him.
Ewan’s ragged breaths quieted until the only sound was that of the water splashing on the fiberglass floor of the shower. He reached down and pulled Sasha to her feet, putting her back to the wall as he kissed her deeply.
“Gods, you drive me crazy.” Ewan broke their kiss and put his mouth to the sensitive skin just below her ear. His teeth grazed the skin there and Sasha drew in a breath. He reached between her thighs and lightly stroked her pussy. She shuddered against him and her hands went up to his shoulders as she steadied her careening world. “I need to be inside of you, Sasha. Let me fuck you.”
Again, the plea in his tone nearly pushed her over the edge. “Yes.” She could barely push the word past her lips she was so out of her mind with desire. “I need you, Ewan. Right now.”
He reached down to cup her ass and hoisted her in his arms. Her legs wound around his waist as he pressed her against the shower wall. The head of his cock probed at her opening and Sasha let out a quiet moan at the shock of delicious heat. He pushed into her, agonizingly slow, and she pulled him closer, urging him to take her hard and deep.
She couldn’t wait another damned second to have him.
A sense of intense relief flooded over Sasha as he buried himself to the thick base. The feeling of fullness, of finally being complete shook her as it did every time they were together and she let out a low breath that ended on an audible sigh.
“Just like that.” She didn’t want slow and easy. She wanted Ewan in all of his glorious intensity. “Don’t stop until I come.”
He buried his face in the crook of her neck and fucked her exactly how she wanted it. How she needed it. Ewan Brún was incomparable.
Pressure built within Sasha’s body. A coming storm ready to unleash its fury. The world expanded around her until she felt as though she were nothing more than a speck of dust floating in a vast and endless universe. She dug her heels into Ewan’s ass, desperate for release. He sensed her need and obeyed the cue, thrusting hard and deep, his pace unrelenting.
“Bite me, Sasha. Gods, do it now.”
It didn’t matter how many times he asked her to do it, nothing compared to the rush of adrenaline that surged through her when he demanded her bite. Her mouth came down over the swell of muscle near his neck and the skin popped beneath the pressure of her fangs. His blood, rich and sweet flowed over her tongue as the orgasm swept her up and away from herself. Deep pulses of sensation rippled from her core, outward to her limbs and heat infused her veins as she continued to feed from Ewan.
His thrusts became harder. Faster. Wild and disjointed. Sasha disengaged her fangs and closed the wounds, pulling away so she could see that moment of rapture on Ewan’s face. Sasha rested her head against the shower wall as she took in every detail of his harsh, but striking face. His brows were drawn, jaw clenched. The deep, expressive brown of his eyes darkened slightly with his passion and Sasha stared in awe of his dark beauty. Her hand came to rest on his cheek, rough with russet stubble. He was the most breathtaking creature she’d ever beheld and somehow, Fate had deemed her worthy of him.
“Come, Ewan.” Sasha’s gaze locked with his “I want to feel it. All of that heat. I need it.”
Gods, how she needed it. How she needed him. Ewan was her one and only weakness and she knew without a doubt their enemies would use that against them.
* * *
Sasha took his breath away. Cheeks flushed, lips swollen and parted, the tiny points of her fangs barely visible. Her molten gaze trained on his, so full of heat, intensified his pleasure. Lent an intimacy to the moment that damn near shook him to his foundation. He’d never felt as raw and vulnerable as he did with Sasha. Exposed. His soul, naked. And whereas that should’ve prompted him to have his guard up, it had the opposite effect. He lowered all of his walls for her. Anything for her.
She wanted him. Wanted to own this moment with him. Wanted to own his orgasm. She had all of that and more. Fuck, she’d owned him from that very first night when she’d let him bend her over the bathroom counter with hardly a single word spoken between them.
The orgasm exploded through him. Pulse after powerful pulse that made his thighs quake and caused every muscle in his body to go rigid. Sasha’s expression softened as her lids drooped almost imperceptibly. Her jaw went slack, parting her lips invitingly. Ewan couldn’t resist their soft lusciousness and leaned in to kiss her as he came down from the high. “Sasha.” He spoke her name with the sanctity of a prayer against her lips. “Sasha.” Another kiss, his offering to the goddess in his arms. “Sasha.” He deepened the kiss, parting her lips to allow his tongue to slip between them. There were so many things he wanted to say to her. So many confessions sat at the tip of his tongue. But he was a gods-damned coward. Unworthy of all of this perfection in his arms. And so, he remained silent and hoped she would understand some measure of what he felt for her in the gentle, yet insistent kisses he rained down on her.
Ewan wasn’t a communicator. He didn’t share. He took his feelings and buried that shit deep. He was a fighter. A warrior. A killer. Sasha deserved so much better than him.
He continued to kiss her until the water ran cold. Sasha shivered, bringing Ewan back to reality. He reached to his left and turned the knob to cut off the spray before lifting Sasha to set her on her feet. The moment her body left his a physical ache settled in the pit of Ewan’s chest. The harsh reality of the past twenty-four hours settled over him. He was a berserker, in love with a vampire, whose life was threatened by a gang of angry demons, not to mention the ruthless male he answered to. And Ewan would do anything to protect her.
He’d gladly die for her.
He hadn’t meant for things to turn so gods-damned somber. He took his worries, his concerns and insecurities, and shoved them to the farthest recesses of his mind. Stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel from under the sink. He went back to Sasha and gathered the wet tendrils of her hair into the towel, drying it before wrapping her body in the terrycloth.
“You’re cold.” The gruffness of his own voice surprised him. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Let me take you to bed.”
“Mmmmm.” The smooth timbre of her voice was enough to warm him through the coldest of winters. “That sounds like a good idea.” The dreamy quality left her expression and she fixed him with a serious stare. “I’m not that cold. But you’re not completely healed. We need to take care of you first.”
He didn’t deserve her selflessness. Her kindness and concern. Didn’t deserve any gods-damned part of her. His wounds seemed inconsequential in the aftermath of their passion. All Ewan wanted to do was get her into bed and tuck her naked body against his.
“I’m fine.” He brushed her worry aside. His skin could’ve been hanging from his bones and he wouldn’t have noticed in the presence of Sasha’s raw beauty.
“You’re not fine.”
“I will be. Your blood helped.” He still couldn’t believe it. His brain continued to buzz from the rush. The unequivocal high. He’d been energized, revitalized, and the bone-deep pain that had raced along his nerve endings dulled. “Right now, let m
e take care of you.”
Sasha unwound the towel from her body. She draped it over Ewan’s head and gently dried his hair. “I’m not the only one who’s cold and dripping wet.”
He let her towel him dry from head to toe. No one had ever taken such care of him and he felt awkward and out of place. In truth, he didn’t know how to respond to kindness. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.” Sasha’s voice was soft, almost a whisper. “I want to.”
Ewan scooped Sasha up in his arms. This simple, quiet moment between them threatened to lay him low. He needed to act, to do something to break the spell before he lost himself even more to her. He crossed to the bedroom and pulled down the covers before depositing her on the mattress and sliding in beside her. Sunrise was still a few hours off, but he needed these quiet moments with her before the sun came to steal her from him.
“Talk to me.” Sasha fitted her body to Ewan’s, putting her back against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and held her as he put his mouth close to her ear.
“About what?”
“Anything.” Her voice took on a dreamlike quality and Ewan wanted to do something to keep her awake. He wasn’t ready for her to fall into that deathlike sleep caused by the fucking sunrise. “I like the sound of your voice.”
His gut clenched and his chest puffed with the compliment. He wanted to please her. Bend over backward, do whatever the hell she asked. Anything to make her happy.
“I’d never met a vampire before … the wars.” Berserkers never referred to their attempted eradication of vampire kind as a war. Gregor called it a “cleansing.” They were ridding the world of something vile and pestilent. He didn’t want Sasha to know that ugliness, though. And so, he referred to it as she had, by calling it “war,” even though it was nothing more than prejudice-driven genocide. “We stayed close to the highlands, kept to ourselves. It wasn’t until Gregor began dealings with a vampire lord and traveled across the sea to Ireland, that we found the trouble we’d be trying to avoid.”
He didn’t know why he chose this story out of all the others he could have told. Maybe he was trying to justify himself to her. The lives he’d taken. His part in her own horrific history. Sasha covered his hand with hers and squeezed. The reassurance was all he needed to continue.
“Gregor only took a few warlords with him whenever they ventured over the water to meet with the vampire. To this day, I don’t know what it was he did for the vampire or vice-versa. Anyone who might have known is dead. All I know is that they quarreled and the lord accused Gregor of betraying him. The vampire was infamous for his cruelty, was thought to be mad, and he took Gregor and those with him as captives. He held a trial of sorts and pronounced judgment.”
Sasha remained quiet, only the sound of her breaths reached Ewan’s ears. She snuggled up closer to him and a tremor shook her. She reached back and cupped the back of his neck and Ewan couldn’t help but to place a kiss on the fragrant skin beneath her ear.
“The vampire lord, Aodhan Reámon, played judge, but he left the job of sentencing punishment to his daughter. A young dhampir, not more than seven or eight years old. A child. He wanted to teach her a lesson in how not to forgive your enemies. He let the choice fall on her: punish the berserkers by killing all of their young, or all of their females. He reasoned with his daughter that without our young, it would be centuries before our numbers replenished. But without our females, we could no longer propagate at all. You were only as strong as your enemies were weak, he’d reasoned with her. And he asked her, ‘Which sentence would make their coven—their kind—stronger?’”
Sasha drew in a sharp breath and held it in her lungs. Ewan wondered how many among those still living knew how all of this had started. He’d been there from the beginning and even his knowledge of the events as Gregor told them was vague at best.
“Is this true?” Sasha whispered.
“It’s the truth as I know it.” It was the best he could offer her. “It’s the truth as Gregor told it to us. The Sortiari promised Gregor retribution. Vengeance for what we’d lost and would never get back. They promised us justice, but what they made us were slaves.
“We killed for them. Fought their wars that went beyond vampire-kind. We intimidated anyone who dared to stand against them. We became the weapon they wielded. And never once, in all of those hundreds of years, did they offer us freedom.”
Sasha turned in his embrace to face him. “Ewan.” Her voice bore so much sadness and tender emotion that it damned near gutted him. Her wide eyes searched his face. “Ewan, I’m so sorry.”
Sorry. He’d killed her kind. Ran stakes through the hearts of countless vampires in the name of a holy war he’d known virtually nothing about. He’d done it without apology or remorse and she was sorry? Gods. She was incomparable. A shining star in the endless dark of his universe. The only bright point in an existence so steeped in bleak bullshit that he’d gladly stepped into the battle arenas again and again, not caring if he lived or died. Not caring about a gods-damned thing.
Sasha Ivanov had made him care about something. Her. He was lost to her and there was no going back.
CHAPTER
30
Sasha stared at Ewan. It seemed that since the day they’d met, he’d struck her speechless time and again. This was something different, though. It wasn’t his sinful good looks, or smoldering gaze. It wasn’t his harsh, demanding nature. Not his power and darkness or his masculine charisma. No, it was the sorrow in his tone that struck her this time. The story he’d told her that was different than the story she knew. The story that tied them together. That tied vampires and berserkers together as sure and tight as the tether that bound them now.
Her heart broke for him. For what he’d endured and what he’d been required to do. He’d agreed to kill to avenge those he’d lost. How could she blame him for that? Just tonight, she’d vowed to kill every demon that walked the earth in retaliation for what they’d done to him. And in return for his loyalty to his leader, his brethren, and the memories of those lost, he’d been enslaved and required for centuries to kill beyond the wrongs done to him.
“Don’t, Sasha.” His voice broke and the sound sliced through her like a blade. “I don’t deserve any gentle words from you.”
How could he possibly think that?
“You think you’re the only one with blood on his hands?” Sasha braced herself on an elbow so she could look into his face. “I’ve killed.”
“You defended yourself.” Ewan’s gruff voice vibrated through her. “There’s a difference.”
He could try to paint himself the villain all he wanted, it wouldn’t change her opinion of him. Sasha let out a rueful bark of laughter. “I know you don’t truly believe that. In times of war, no one is innocent.”
“You call it a war.” Ewan’s gaze darkened. He reached up and cupped Sasha’s cheek. “It was anything but a war.”
Sasha gave him a soft smile. “If what you say is true, then wasn’t it a vampire who struck the first blow? Wasn’t it a vampire who is guilty of being the aggressor? Wasn’t it Gregor who was provoked?” If Saeed or any other of her kind heard her words, she’d be considered a traitor. But weren’t there two sides to every story? Didn’t Ewan deserve the benefit of the doubt?
“There are only two souls left alive who know the entire truth.” Dark clouds gathered in Ewan’s eyes and in his ominous tone. “Ian Gregor and the dhampir who pronounced the death sentence.”
Sasha sat up a little straighter. “She’s alive?” If what Ewan said was true, then somewhere within the thirteen covens, hid the now grown female who’d started them all down this dark path.
“Gregor believes she is.” Ewan fiddled with her hair, suddenly lost in thought. “He searches for her, night after night. All of his machinations intended to lead him to her so he can capture her and make her suffer for her sins.”
Talk about a vendetta.
“And by our very existence, we are a part
of that endeavor. He won’t stop.” Ewan sat up to drive his point home and gripped Sasha by the shoulders. “He won’t give this up until every last one of you is dead.”
Why did it have to be that way at all? Sasha had been alive to witness the carnage, the hate, the indiscriminate killing. She’d known fear and panic. But why couldn’t the past be left in the past where it belonged? Why did Gregor have to hold on so tightly to his hatred?
Because this wasn’t something passed down through generations. Supernatural creatures didn’t let go of the past because it was always with them. It molded and shaped them. Followed them through centuries of existence. They weren’t simply stories of hardship passed down through generations. Wounds were as fresh now as they were when first made. Long-lived creatures had the memories to match their physical endurance. Gregor would never forget. He would never forgive. Ewan was right. He wouldn’t stop until he had his vengeance.
“Where does this leave us?” Sasha had refused to believe there was ever an “us” to consider. She’d thought she could exist apart from the tether. Apart from Ewan. She’d been stupid to think she could keep herself away from him. There was no way they would ever escape their pasts, who they were, what they were, and how they fit into the grand scheme of that sadistic bitch, Fate’s plans.
Ewan leaned in and kissed her. Slowly. His full lips moved over hers and Sasha sighed into his mouth. “Gregor will never lay so much as a finger on you, Sasha,” Ewan murmured against her mouth. “I promise you that.”
His words were a fist that squeezed her heart. She didn’t want to love him. Didn’t want to open herself up to the possibility of being hurt again. But gods, how could she not love him? How could she not lose herself completely to this magnificent male who vowed to defy his family, his history, the very events that made him what he was, in order to keep her safe.