The Warlord Wants Forever iad-1

by Kresley Cole

  At her ear, he rumbled the words, "Come for me, milaya."

  "Ah, yes…Wroth," she moaned again, about to succumb to his stroking. She gave a strangled cry and climaxed with a fiery, wet pulsing that staggered her and made him groan as if he had as well.

  "I can feel you come," he grated while she clutched him, rolling her hips against his masterful touch until she was too sensitive to continue. But he didn't stop until she was mindlessly moaning his name in his capturing arms.

  When she was spent, she sagged against him, still weakly undulating for him. Her nipples were wet and achy from his tongue.

  He cupped the back of her neck and yanked her up to face him, gazing down at her with lust, but his words were more. "I will be good to you, Myst. I will protect you. You are mine."

  He was saying these things because he was about to shove into her with that huge shaft, to claim her. A true vampire's Bride. He took her leg and clutched it to his hip, about to free himself.

  Her half-lidded eyes had just widened with true alarm when she heard the merest whisper at the gateway to the dungeon.

  Before he could react, Myst flung herself away. Why would she do that? His hand shot out to pull her back, but she shrank from him. Why wasn't he inside her right now? He'd made sure she was wet, ready to receive him—

  He heard movement and jerked his head around, fangs sharpening in fury.

  "Look at the lovebirds." A creature similar to Myst was standing at the entry to the cell, a bow at the ready.

  A second one with bright, glowing skin joined the first, happily chewing gum and flipping a dagger in the air. "Don't make me look—I think I'll be sick. Myst, cavorting with a vampire is a new low even for you."

  "What is this?" Wroth demanded, stalking toward them.

  The archer nocked an arrow with supernatural speed and let it sing without hesitation. He lunged to dodge it, but she'd anticipated his move and the arrow pinned him to the wall. A second took his other shoulder, drilling its tip half a foot into the stone. He cast her a killing look, then lurched forward to simply let the arrows tear through him, but the shafts were ringed like shank nails.

  When he realized he wouldn't be moving, he bellowed with rage.

  He saw Myst pulling her clothing together, turning for the door. "Don't you walk away from me."

  "So sorry to interrupt your plans for tonight." She cast him that hurt look. "You almost made me forget that you'd come down here to torture me. You want to learn? Know that we hate torture. It starts to add up over the years—"

  "That was before I knew you were my Bride."

  Her face went cold in an instant. "Before you knew you could finally screw me? Now that your body's in working order, I don't feel the skin flayed from mine?"

  "You're my Bride. Mine. You belong to me."

  She flew back at him, enraged. The bright one tossed her a dagger and Myst caught it behind her without looking. Again his mind demanded to know what she was.

  She pressed the blade to his jugular. Her pupils were silver and lightning bombarded the castle. "If I belonged to every man who wanted it so or to every vampire I've blooded there'd be nothing left of me. But no one cares about that."

  "You've not blooded others. They would be here protecting you, fighting for you."

  "Not"—she leaned in closer, tilting her head like an animal—"if I killed them all."

  Then she grabbed the back of his head and pulled him to her, pressing her lips against his. She kissed him hard. Yet he soon tasted…her blood? Just as he groaned, she drew back with an inscrutable expression on her face.

  Unimaginably warm and rich, her blood was as exquisite as everything else about her, and he shuddered in ecstasy at the luscious taste. "You know I'll want nothing else now," he rasped.

  In response, she snapped her teeth at him. To the others she commanded, "Leave him," then exited the cell.

  The archer and the bright one exchanged a confused glance. "And by ‘leave him' you clearly mean leave him beheaded, disemboweled, and chock full of quills like a pincushion."

  "You heard him—I'm his Bride."

  "Ohhh," the bright one said, blowing a bubble. "You mean he hasn't, uh, you know, released, the first time since his blooding?" Then with a quick glance at his crotch, she said, "And he stays like that without you, right?" She chuckled. "I'm cool with the plan."

  The archer wasn't convinced. "Don't get me wrong, I enjoy condemning vampires to unending sexual torture as much as the next fabulously talented huntress…" When Wroth heard a guard charging in, she leisurely shot an arrow in that direction, tilted her head at the result, then sighed to Myst, "But Vampire Bride just sounds so B-movie. He just dragged you down to B-moviedom."

  The bright one made her voice overly dramatic, saying, "For that alone…he must die. Seriously, Myst. Your ‘husband' has irrevocably damaged your street cred unless you kill him like the others."

  They were all mad.

  And still he was hard, aching for her body, for the blood she'd given him just to torture him. "You evil, teasing bitch. Kill me then."

  For just the merest second he imagined he saw compassion in her eyes, but when she shrugged, his hazy mind finally grasped that she was going to leave him here with nothing but a body knotted with lust for her and a taste of blood that he would go to his knees for. "You're the most malicious bitch I've ever known."

  "Flatterer," she chirped.

  Across the corridor, she easily leapt to the window forty feet above, opening the shutters to draw the unfortified bars from the space as though she might pluck back a curtain. She held a hand down for the others.

  "I will find you," he bit out. "I will find you and make you pay for this a thousand times."

  The bright one leapt up and caught Myst's forefinger with her own. "Sounds like he's setting up a date," she said as she dangled.

  "Oooom," Myst purred, her gaze flickering over him. "Dress casual."

  Chapter Four

  Present Day

  Never-ending sexual desire that could never be slaked.

  She'd knowingly—delightedly—surrendered him to this torment. His Bride had blooded him, giving him his first need as a vampire, then stoked it to a fever pitch—and only his Bride could work his body free to release the first time. If she had only stayed long enough for him to take her just once, or to merely touch her skin as he'd taken his own ease, she could've spared him this. But then she'd clearly said that that was the plan.

  And for the last five years, Wroth had been cursed with more than that. He was cursed with her memories as well.

  The minuscule drop of blood taken directly from her body did more than make any other blood taste like tar to him—it did just what the Forbearers feared. With her living blood came dreams where her memories unfolded, so realistic they were as if he was there to experience scents she'd smelled and textures she'd felt. Sometimes he could even feel her hands clench in anger. But he'd told no one, keeping his secrets because he didn't want to lose his power within their army—or be killed.

  Each sunset he rose and checked his eyes for the telltale red, and every day if he could manage to sleep, he was subjected to the same series of memories that subtly grew in detail each time.

  The first found her atop a hill, sun bright, with snow still on the ground. "I've cursed you to your hell," Myst hissed at the site of a rough gravestone. She was roiling with so much hostility that Wroth knew she must have killed whatever being lay there. She spoke an ancient language that Wroth shouldn't understand, but he did. He felt the sensations she'd felt, the constant sway of her chain around her waist, the smell of the ocean just below her, brine on a cold day.

  Another familiar dream. A drunken Roman senator kneeling at her feet. "At long last, I'm about to have Myst the Coveted. And you'll no longer be coveted, you'll be possessed." He laughed. "You'll make me twist on your little hook no longer."

  Wroth had discovered the full name of his tormenter. Myst the Coveted.

  With di
sgust, Wroth saw the Roman take Myst's dainty foot in his mouth, sucking greedily, stroking himself, as she slowly lifted her skirt up her silken thighs for him. As ever, Wroth fought not to see this, fought to wake. His violent revulsion never diminished over time.

  The first time he'd had that dream, he'd been relieved when another scene unfolded before that one came to some kind of sick conclusion. But never again…

  Myst was running past a Viking raiding party on the coast of some northern land. Purposely. She wanted them to hunt her. To catch her and throw her to the ground in the hard snow. What kind of twisted need did she have? She was excited, her blood pumping. Her skin felt like it was sizzling with electricity, and lightning was generated from her excitement. She stifled a smile, when with bellows and cheers, the men gave chase…

  As ever, Wroth fought to force his mind away before he saw a dozen Vikings rutting on his Bride. To her delight.

  Tonight a new dream. Finally. Snow outside, packed so high it covered half the window. Women, or other creatures like her, met around a great hearth. They were sisters and Wroth saw their faces as though familiar and knew their names and who they were as well as Myst did. He recognized the archer as Lucia, and the bright one he now knew was Regin the Radiant. A vacant-eyed one was called Nïx, the oldest of her sisters and believed to be a soothsayer. Their clothing indicated early twentieth century.

  They were meeting over the fate of a baby that their leader, a somber creature named Annika, wished to keep. Myst frowned at the little girl in Annika's arms, confused to feel some stirring of feeling for it.

  "How are we to care for her, Annika?" Lucia murmured.

  Regin snapped, "How can you bring a vampire among us when they slaughtered my people?"

  One named Daniela the Ice Maiden knelt beside Annika, gazing up at her, briefly touching her with a pale hand. Myst shivered to think of the pain Danii had just felt to offer that cold touch. Daniela's mother's people had been the ice fey and she couldn't be touched by anyone but one of them without extreme pain. "She needs to be with her own kind. I know this well."

  Annika shook her head determinedly. "Her ears. Her eyes. She's Valkyrie as much as vampire."

  Valkyrie…? Impossible.

  "She'll grow to be evil," Regin insisted. "She's already snapped at me with her baby fangs. By Freya, she drinks blood!"

  "Trifling," Myst interjected in a casual tone. "We eat electricity."

  The vacant-eyed Nïx laughed.

  A vampire child? Eating electricity? His heart was racing…

  Annika said, "I will keep Emmaline from the Horde and guide her to be all that was good and honorable about the Valkyrie before time eroded us." Her words were laced with sadness and triggered a memory that Myst hated.

  Wroth wanted to see it but couldn't.

  Annika rubbed noses with the baby and asked her, "Now where's the best place to hide the most beautiful little vampire in the world?"

  Nïx laughed delightedly. "Laissez les bon temps roulez…"

  New Orleans.

  Wroth shot up in bed, body drenched with sweat.

  My Bride's a Valkyrie? he thought with a choking cough. His mind couldn't wrap around the idea of it.

  He hadn't known they even existed. A character from legends told around campfires was linked to him for eternity. From the dreams, he knew she was a millennias-old mystical being born of a fierce Pictish princess—who'd plunged a dagger into her heart rather than be taken alive by an enemy—and of gods.

  She didn't eat because she took electrical energy from the earth and gave it back with her emotions in the form of lightning. She was a killer and had been a Roman senator's whore. She despised men and enjoyed tormenting them, just as she'd done with him.

  He glanced down at his throbbing erection. Even his hatred couldn't battle his relentless need for her. The impulse to take his cock in his fist was there, but he fought it, knowing he could never bring himself to come, knowing it would only increase his pain.

  For five years she'd sentenced him to suffering from this constant, grueling ache. Before he'd learned there was no relief without her, he would've futilely stroked himself or thrust against the bed, imagining it was Myst clutched beneath him, but he never took release.

  Other females repelled him—because they weren't her. Even if he believed he could find ease with another woman, he would never demean himself with another. He'd felt his Myst's incredible softness, felt her wet with desire for him, her body squeezing around his fingers as she'd climaxed from his touch.

  He shuddered and his cock pulsed hungrily. Linked for eternity. To Myst the Coveted, a mythological being who despised him. The only way he'd keep her for eternity would be to punish her for that long.

  He knew he coveted her as none other had. And now he knew where to find her.

  Chapter Five

  The fumes of swamp, steamed hot dogs and soured beer wafted up to Myst and her sisters as they perched on a roof above the chaos that was Bourbon Street.

  There were rumors of vampires running about in New Orleans.

  Vampires in Louisiana? Unheard of.

  If there'd been only one account of leeches, then she and Regin and Nïx would still be back at Val Hall, their bayou manor, playing video games. But a demon friend had sworn he'd seen one—and a phantom had whispered that there was not just one faction of vampires, but two.

  Myst's eyes darted over the scene, trying to remain focused and not notice the couples frantically grinding against each other in dark alleys. If Daniela was here she would blow them a kiss and cool them off, freezing hands to asses in mid-grope and making her sisters chortle and roll along the roof. Myst supposed that the Valkyrie were easily amused.

  But focus was proving futile ever since her heart had sped up at the idea of vampires here. If for some reason they had come to the New World—which the Horde historically found vulgar and beneath them—that still didn't mean him.

  Wroth. One of her true regrets in her life.

  Every day, she mused that she shouldn't have left that vampire to suffer—she should have killed him.

  Regin tossed her blade up, caught the point into her claw, then flicked it up once more. "You know, not that I believe there are actual vampires here—cause that's just whacky speak—but if there were, they should know that this is our turf."

  "Should we ask them to rumble? Or maybe mash?" Nïx asked as she swiftly braided her waist-length black hair. "I've heard those can be a graveyard smash." Even sporting the old-fashioned hairstyle and an occasionally confused glance—she saw the future more clearly than the present—Nïx still looked like a supermodel.

  "I'm serious," Regin said. "New Orleans may have once been the mystical melting pot of the world, but we control this place now."

  "We can always send Mysty the Vampire Layer to battle them," Nïx said thoughtfully. "Oh wait, she'd run off with them."

  Regin added, "Or use her famed tongue assault to flail the skin from their bodies as they inexplicably line up to sacrifice themselves."

  "Har-de-har-har," Myst mumbled, half-listening. She'd been razzed about this continually. And she deserved it. She might as well have been caught free-basing with the ghost of Bundy. Of course others had overheard the jokes in the coven and the word spread. Even other factions of the Lore—like the nymphs, those little hookers—whispered about her unsavory predilection toward vampires. But it wasn't vampires plural, it was only one.

  Wroth. She shivered. With his slow, hot fingers…

  In her bed late at night, when she touched herself, she always fantasized about him, remembering his hard chest and harder shaft, imagining his ferocity, his intensity, if he ever found her again.

  Truthfully, she thought he might have found her by now. She'd—accidentally?—given him her blood, possibly giving him her memories, which could lead him straight here. She often pondered that reckless kiss. She'd had no discernible intention of giving him blood, but hadn't she known in the back of her mind that his fangs
would be razor sharp with her sisters' arrival? Had she wanted him to find her?

  She shook her head, needing to stay sharp. Annika, Daniela and Lucia were down there somewhere.

  "Lookit," Regin said, pointing down. "Men that big shouldn't get schnockered."

  Myst turned her attention to a tall man who reminded her of Wroth from the back—why couldn't she get that vampire off the brain?—though this one was much rangier in build. The man leaned against another massive male, hanging on to him for balance as they walked. She noticed her claws were curling.

  "Myst, can't you control that?" Regin asked with a fleeting glance at her claws. "It's embarrassing."

  "Listen, I can't help it, I like big males with broad shoulders. And I bet under that trench coat he has an ass that begs to be clutched."

  Nïx offered, "And it's not like she can put Band-Aids over them—"

  "Holy shite," Regin exclaimed. "I see a glow. Ghouls, down by Ursilines Avenue."

  "Damn it," Myst muttered. "In public again? They are hard-up recruiting then." Ghouls were maniacal fighters out to increase their numbers by turning humans with their contagious bites and scratches. They had green, gelatinous blood, and the parish of Orleans went gooey every time the coven fought them.

  "Again." Nïx sighed. "And there's only so many times we can convince drunken tourists they're extras in a sci-fi flick."

  Regin slid her blade into her forearm sheath. "Stargate part twelve is officially on location." She rose. "We'll go canoodle the ghouls. You keep a watch out for vampires." She made a ghostly wooo-wooo sound. "And try not to lift tail for any of them, ‘kay?"

  As Myst rolled her eyes, her sisters linked arms and leapt down, moving so quickly they were like a blur. As usual, no one could see them, and if they did in this Lore-rich city no one registered it.

  Myst surveyed the glow from afar. It wasn't that extensive, so she knew they could handle it. As eldest, Nïx was strong and Regin was wily. Besides, Myst had new boots on and she'd be damned if she'd lose another pair to the epic battle between buttery soft Italian leather and goo. Too many casualties already. It was terribly saddening. Really.