She had a new, very intense appreciation for Jack’s hands.
When his hands made it back to her shoulders, they trailed up the sides of her neck and stroked through her hair, massaging her scalp for a moment before they began to work their way down once again. By the time his fingers were once again kneading at the dip of her back just before her ass, she was limp and loose-limbed, and she was pretty sure she was going to fall asleep. She hardly even noticed when he shifted so he was kneeling beside her, rather than astride her.
With one hand, he coaxed her thighs to spread slightly, and she sighed out a quiet gasp as he pressed two fingers to the lips of her sex. He stroked the outer folds slowly for a drawn-out moment, until her hips were shifting lackadaisically against the bedspread, before he finally let his fingers dip between the folds to begin stroking her clit. Gently, at first, almost as if he was simply trying to tickle her, and then firmer, fingers pressing against it as he rubbed them in circles.
He waited until she was moaning steadily before he pressed his thumb to her entrance and found it dripping. With three fingers still rubbing her clit, he pushed his thumb inside, letting it shift to and fro within her heat with each motion of his hand, until with a low, breathy cry, she came, fluid flooding over his fingers. He kept stroking, working her through her orgasm until she was whining quietly.
Pulling his hand away, he scrubbed it off on the blanket. With a hand on her hip, he urged her, “Roll over.” She complied easily, rolling onto her back, hands splayed gracelessly at her sides. She lifted her head reluctantly as Jack got up, the mattress shifting. He curled his hands around her hips and gave her a tug, until her hips were hanging off of the end of the bed. She looked confused at first, until he placed his hands on her knees to push them apart and then knelt on the floor between them.
He cupped his hands behind her knees and urged her to hitch them over his shoulders, and he waited until she did so before he shuffled forward on his knees, close enough that he could duck his head down, between her legs. His hands drifted downwards, so his fingers could curl against her thighs.
The first lap of his tongue, only against the outer folds of her sex, was slow, but it still hit her like a shock. She had never had anyone do this before, and just the anticipation alone had her hands fisting in the blanket beneath her.
He lapped at her gently, his tongue dragging only over the outer lips of her sex at first, until she was squirming impatiently against the bed. Finally, he tightened his hold on her thighs and dipped his head forward, his tongue parting her labia. It dipped past her entrance briefly, before dragging upwards, to lap at her clit. He closed his lips around the nub and sucked, and nearly instantly, there were two hands clenched in his hair. He let her push him more firmly against her.
Her fingers tightened in his hair, and her legs tensed against his shoulders as he worked her with his lips and tongue, until he had to push her hips down to the bed to keep her from grinding against his face. She gasped and moaned, and she writhed under his hands. He redoubled his efforts until, finally, her back arched away from the bed like a bow and her fingers tightened to the point that it was nearly painful, before her grip relaxed all at once as she came.
Jack leaned back and to the side, letting go of Siobhan’s hips and using the blanket to wipe the lower half of his face dry. Siobhan went limp on the bed, every muscle going lax, so her legs fell down from his shoulders. She panted slowly, drawing air into her lungs in long, heaving gulps.
Slowly, Jack stood up and crawled back onto the bed. Carefully, he began rearranging Siobhan, pulling her the rest of the way back onto the bed, until he could kneel between her legs. He hitched her legs up towards her chest, nearly bending her in half. He gave her a questioning look, and she managed a clumsy, glazed-eyed nod for him to go ahead. He lined his cock up with her entrance and pushed forward, gliding in easily. He groaned, low and drawn-out, and Siobhan sighed out a quiet moan.
His first thrust was slow, and then Siobhan breathed out a quiet, “Go on,” and after that, there was no holding back. Each thrust was fast and harsh, scooting Siobhan steadily along the bed. It didn’t take long before her hips were rolling to meet each thrust as heat began to build in her abdomen for a third time.
Siobhan, running low on anything resembling stamina at that point, came first. Jack kept thrusting through her orgasm as her muscles tensed, and he kept thrusting afterwards as she went limp, her eyes half-lidded. When, at last, he came, it was with a final handful of stuttering, uneven thrusts, before he leaned over her to catch his breath. He let go of her legs, letting them fall back to the bed on either side of him. Slowly, once he caught his breath, he withdrew.
Gracelessly, Jack toppled to the side, tumbling down onto the mattress beside her. Siobhan rolled sluggishly onto her side and burrowed closer to him, slinging an arm across his chest as she did.
Both of them were a mess, coated in a sheen of sweat. Jack’s hair was in absolute disarray from Siobhan’s hands, and her curls were in every direction, some of them stuck to her forehead, cheeks, and neck.
For a very long moment, no one said anything. And then, Jack turned his head to look at her. She was definitely more relaxed than she had been when he’d walked into the room.
“Verdict?” he asked wryly, pushing her hair back from her face.
Siobhan breathed out a tired laugh. “Definitely made me feel good,” she replied, tucking herself more firmly against his side. She ducked her head against his shoulder, muffling her voice slightly as she added, “I think I’m just going to sleep for the next three days.”
“Probably more like three hours,” Jack corrected blandly, idly carding his fingers through her hair. She grunted at him incoherently, which he took to mean that the time for conversation had ended, at least for the time being. Obligingly, he fell silent.
Siobhan was out for the count in what seemed to be an instant, and she hardly even twitched the entire time she slept.
She dreamed of a phoenix falling through the air as it crumbled to ash and struggled to pull itself back together, until it finally managed to turn into a fresh, unburned chick. It wobbled along, growing steadily, until it took off once again, a bright and beautiful and burning bird, lighting its way across the sky.
Maybe it meant something. Maybe it didn’t. She wasn’t particularly inclined to think too hard on it—stressing about what her sleeping imagination was trying to tell her had never been particularly high on her to-do list—and, soon enough, the images faded, and the rest of her sleep was dreamless.
CHAPTER TEN
To all appearances, it was an average night. It was mildly cloudy, but the weather was calm. The manor was quiet, and nothing particularly adventurous was going on within the walls. There was no rain. There was hardly even a breeze. It was simply a night like any other, with no details to pick out that made it stand out from any others. But it felt like something was going to happen that night. There was a thrum in the air, as if the entire world had taken a breath and was holding it while they waited to see what happened.
The Vampire Lords were deliberating, locked away in Regina’s chambers. With all of the trial keepers contacted and in agreement, all that was left to do was to decide when they were going to deal with the Metatron. Everyone was reasonably certain that the answer was going to be ‘tonight.’ Time was an important factor, after all, and there was nothing else standing in their way.
No one could say they were surprised when the Vampire Lords gathered everyone together on the manor’s ground floor and Regina explained, “Tonight, we’re putting an end to this, one way or another. We’re going to confront the Metatron, and whatever happens, that will be the end of things.”
“What do you want us to do?” Jack asked, always the first to volunteer for anything Regina needed done.
Regina shook her head. “Nothing,” she answered simply. “This will take the efforts of five Vampire Lords. There is nothing you can do. All of you are to stay clear of whatever confl
ict erupts. Leave, if you wish. Because whatever is going to happen will kill you if you get caught in the middle of it.” She gave Jack, Siobhan, and Gabriel a very meaningful look. “Do I make myself clear?”
There was some indistinct mumbling in reply until Regina’s eyes sharpened, and Jack, Siobhan, and Gabriel answered, almost as one, “Understood.”
“Good.” Regina nodded once, satisfied. From there, all five Vampire Lords filed out of the manor into the yard. They clustered together, standing in a circle, close enough that they could reach out and grab the shoulders of the Lords to either side of them. They were all being watched from the windows and doors, and they knew, but to be fair, none of them had actually expected the ‘it might be a good idea to leave’ suggestion to be followed.
All five of the Lords let their eyes close, and they reached for that feeling that holding the Pieces of Eden had once invoked, focusing on that space in the backs of their minds where they knew the trial keepers were waiting to be called upon.
Regina felt roots brushing her legs and the shade of leaves over her shoulders. Harendra felt scaly coils around his arm, shifting and tightening slightly. Dask’iya heard the rattling of a serpent’s tail. Allambee felt a forked tongue against the back of his neck before a wedge-shaped head nudged his shoulder. Osamu heard a bell-like laugh, and a hand curled around one of his shoulders almost companionably.
The air around them seemed to buzz, prickling over their skin like electricity. The world around them started to get hazy at the edges, as if their connection to the rest of the world was being unraveled, one thread at a time.
As if the universe was taking a deep breath, suddenly the Vampire Lords were gone. There was no flash of light or rumble of thunder. There was a quiet pop of air rushing in to fill the spaces they had been standing in a moment before, but other than that, there was no pomp or circumstance. In one instant, they were standing there, and in the next, they were simply gone, as if they had never been there to begin with.
*
When the Vampire Lords arrived in Heaven, it was with a similar lack of fanfare. There was empty space and then a rush of air as the empty space was abruptly filled with them. There was nothing to truly announce their arrival, but that was likely for the best.
Already, it felt as if there was a string at the back of Regina’s mind, steadily pulling, as if to yank her out of the world. For the moment, at least, it was easily ignored. She had no doubt it would become harder to ignore the longer they were in Heaven.
From there, they just had to get their bearings, but that was easier said than done, as they soon noticed.
Heaven was not what they were expecting it to be. It was simply… light. There was some sort of ground beneath the Vampire Lords’ feet and, of course, there was air around them, but beyond that knowledge, they couldn’t actually see anything except for intermingling white and gold light. If that was simply what Heaven truly looked like or if it was only properly visible to angels, they weren’t sure, but they supposed it didn’t particularly matter.
The Metatron was waiting for them, though he wasn’t immediately visible, blending into the light as some sort of wild creature might blend into the forest, so all they could see was a wobbling outline as he moved, like some sort of heat haze. The Metatron was more of a mirage than a being, it seemed.
But there were five Lords, and they had help.
If Regina listened carefully, she could hear a whispering voice at the back of her thoughts, as her trial keeper informed her that, if they just managed to grab onto the Metatron, they could drag him out of Heaven. A cursory glance around revealed the other four seemingly listening to something, so she imagined they were all hearing the same information that she was from their own trial keepers.
Just grab onto the Metatron. That sounded doable. Even if he was hard to see, there were five of them, and no one said they had to hold onto him for long. They just had to grab him before they got booted back out of Heaven. But she also knew that these things were rarely ever as simple as they sounded like they should be.
As if to prove that point, the Metatron hardly even offered them a chance to figure out which direction was up. He surged forward, blending in with the light, silent as an owl. He crashed into Dask’iya, throwing her to the ground, and immediately used her as a springboard to then launch himself at Harendra.
Harendra ducked, so only his shoulder wound up clipped, though he still wound up on his ass on the ground, while the Metatron faltered in the air but regained his balance, pivoting in the air like a top.
Osamu offered Harendra a hand up and then flung him forward. With that added momentum, Harendra slammed into the Metatron’s back, slamming an elbow against his spine between his wings. They crashed to the ground in a heap until the Metatron kicked Harendra off with enough force to send him sprawling. His wings flapped once, the breeze ruffling the hair of the nearest Lords.
Regina rolled her eyes and threw herself into the fray, her shoulder colliding with the Metatron’s side as she ducked her head and charged him like a linebacker. He stumbled two steps to the side and spread his wings to take off, only to stumble in that attempt when Harendra seized a handful of feathers and yanked, ripping a fistful of feathers free. With an indecipherable shout that sounded offended, the Metatron snapped his wings outward like a pair of battering rams.
Regina ducked under one wing and punched the Metatron in the ribs before she ducked under a strike to elbow him in the sternum. She dropped to her knees and then tumbled as he tried to kick her, and when he landed, he turned away from her entirely, evidently deciding that she was too slippery to bother with. Instead, he turned to Dask’iya and bolted towards her, slowing only when she simply looked at him with no intent to move.
The Metatron reared back, backpedaling away from Dask’iya as her hands caught fire. She pursued him one step at a time, flames increasing in heat and brightness. And then the Metatron flapped his wings forward to make a breeze.
Dask’iya’s fire went out like a wick being snuffed, and the Metatron propelled himself into the air just enough to kick her in the chest with both feet, knocking her onto her back and sending her tumbling. He advanced after her, and then Allambee threw an arm around the Metatron’s waist, dragging him back down towards the ground and ripping his attention away from Dask’iya, with much the same attitude as a man impatiently scruffing a kitten that was getting up to too much trouble.
The Metatron kicked Allambee aside once and then a second time when Allambee latched onto him again immediately to haul him downwards. On the second attempt, Allambee stayed down long enough for the Metatron to actually put some space between them. He turned his attention towards Osamu and lunged. Osamu bolted out of the way, drawing the Metatron farther away from the group.
Flames erupted around the Metatron, forcing him to a halt, and he beat his wings forward, extinguishing the portion of the white-hot blaze in front of him. Harendra caught the end of one wing as it neared him, and Osamu caught the end of the other wing. They dug their heels in and hung on as he tried to wrench his wings free, until Regina crashed into his back, locking an arm around his neck. His back arched as he tried to dislodge her, but Dask’iya’s fire was creeping closer, keeping him on his toes. Allambee crashed into him like a wrecking ball, slamming a fist and then an elbow into the Metatron’s chest before seizing a handful of his hair. Dask’iya’s fire abruptly rolled inwards, and she strolled through it and shoved a hand into his face.
The air vibrated, and the glowing golden light started to fluctuate in much the same way as a guitar string might be plucked. The trial keepers didn’t actually say anything; they simply acted.
There was the impression of a great heaving motion in the air, and suddenly everything felt weightier, as if gravity had suddenly decided that it had been going too easy on everyone and it needed to correct that oversight. The Metatron was shouting at them, ranting and raving in a language none of them could understand, though they were more than wi
lling to simply assume that it wasn’t complimentary.
With a feeling like a hand had fisted itself in their guts and pulled as hard as it could, they were all ripped out of Heaven. If not for the way the Metatron screamed and came with them, they might have assumed that they had done something wrong, for it was not a pleasant process, but perhaps that was to be expected; moving from one plane of existence to another probably was not designed to be an easy process, lest everyone decide to do so on a lark.
Between one breath and the next, they were no longer in Heaven.
*
Everyone was gathered outside the manor when the Lords reappeared, plus an extra. No one wanted to miss a moment of whatever was about to happen. For those who had been there through Chambersburg and Belleview and the tracking of the archangel puppets, fleeing before the last fight seemed tantamount to heresy. They had all been stuck in the angelic quagmire for so long that leaving early merely to avoid the possibility of being collateral damage was hardly even a real option.
(Besides, if the Vampire Lords failed, then everyone and everything would be collateral damage, so sticking around to watch whether or not they managed to bring things to an end hardly seemed like a big deal in comparison.)
The Vampire's Bond Trilogy: The Complete Vampire Romance Series Page 48