by Kresley Cole
Her attention easily fell once more to the man on the street, and she raised an eyebrow. If his front matched his back, she'd be tempted. It had been ages, literally, since she'd had a little some-some, and she deserved—
She sucked in a breath, springing back against the dormer. The drunk was no drunk at all she saw when he peered down an alley, giving her his profile. The body she'd been ogling was that of her "estranged husband," as the coven liked to tease her.
He stumbled not from drink but from weakness, his build different because he'd lost weight. And that was his brother Murdoch helping him—helping Wroth find her.
Shaking, she crept along the roof, pressing herself around the dormers, hoping to get away before he saw her. He stopped, lifting his head above the milling crowd, then swung around to her direction.
His gaze fell directly on her, his eyes black, feral and riveted to her with a look of utter possession. When Murdoch's gaze followed Wroth's, he gave her an almost pitying expression, then he slapped Wroth on the back before tracing away.
The blood left her face. She leapt to the roof of the adjoining building, gaining speed for the next—
She screamed as Wroth's gaunt visage appeared directly in front of her. Traced. She sprinted in the other direction, but he snatched her around her chest, pinning her to him, making her feel his erection thick against her. She elbowed his throat, dropped from his arms, and dove over the edge of the roof. She tumbled into a high-walled courtyard, landing on hands and feet, then scrambled up to leap out of the darkened space. But her speed was no match for his tracing.
He snagged her again, and though she fought, he was somehow stronger even in his condition—maybe because of his condition. One of his hands yanked up her short skirt.
"Wroth! Don't do this!"
"Five years of hell," he sneered, palming her ass roughly. "You deserve to be fucked till you can't walk."
She gasped, trembling. "So the warlord claims his prize? It figures that you'd take your Bride whether she wants it or not. You'd make me remember being forced?"
After a pause he bit out, "No. God, no." She heard him freeing himself. "Myst," he groaned, "just feel me." He took her hand and made her cup his heavy sack, then grip his shaft. Never had she felt such hardness. "Rub the head," he rasped in her ear, making her shiver as she felt the moisture. "That's as close as I can get without you. I need to fuck you so bad I'm sick with it."
"Wroth, don't…"
With a bitter curse, he lowered his head, forehead against her neck, but he only thrust against her ass. "Can't stop," he grated, and she knew then that he wasn't going to take her body, just touch it, use it. Why would he refrain for her…?
His fingers strummed her nipple. Lightning. No, she couldn't want this.
His breath was hot on her and made her body go liquid. She could want it, just as she did every night in her lonely bed. The air was sultry, redolent with the scent of jasmine and even more moist than usual from the pounding fountain in the corner. No one was home. He wouldn't take her, so why not enjoy this for mere moments?
When she went soft in his grasp, lacing her arms back to lock behind his head, he growled and kicked his feet against hers, making her spread her legs. Shuddering, he ruthlessly shoved against her flesh, then threw back his head and yelled out just before he came. At the last minute he turned from her and began to spill his seed onto the ground.
She was frozen, unable to see, and for some reason it affected her more to only hear his reactions, the guttural groans erupting from deep in his chest. She felt the violent shaking, the strength in his wracked body as he clenched her through waves of pleasure.
It went on and on, each second that passed reminding her of how badly he'd needed this. Then he put his lips to her neck, clutched her ass and she knew he was stroking himself directly to ejaculate again. When she thought about how many nights he would have envisioned this, her head fell back against his shoulder.
The second time was impossibly even more powerful as he desperately kissed and licked her skin, squeezing one breast then the other, reminding her keenly of when he'd brought her to come that night in the dungeon. She wanted to join him—she wanted him to work those fingers on her next.
When he was done, he lifted her hair and brushed his lips to her neck, shuddering and breathing heavily. Her eyes closed and she was just about to say, "My turn," when he did the most bizarre thing.
He arranged his clothing again and pulled down her skirt, then he turned her to him to stare down into her eyes. He cupped the back of her neck hard to yank her to face him, but instead of drinking her, or hitting her, he squeezed her into his broad chest, his hand moving to the back of her head, tucking her into him with those powerful arms. Which was disconcertingly pleasant.
Curious, she let him embrace her, relaxing a fraction, and in return, he lowered his head to kiss her hair. Finally he set her back to face him. His expression was not as wild, but grim. "I've searched for you, Bride."
"Been right here."
"You've treated me ill, leaving me in that state."
"My sisters were going to kill you, but I saved your life. And you were about to treat me far worse."
"And licking my fang?"
That had been an accident! Still she raised her chin and said, "The least I could do since you were about to torture me. Consider it a memento."
His face hardened at that, but then he seemed to get his temper under control. "For five years I've envisioned the retribution I would mete out, constantly imagining making you pay for what you did to me." He exhaled a long breath. "But I'm weary of it, Myst, weary of carrying this. I want to look forward and get on with our life."
Our life?
"From here I'm willing to start with a clean slate. We are even for our misdeeds against the other and we will forget about any past…indiscretions that might have gone on before we met."
"Indiscretions?" How magnanimous of the vampire to give her an empty score card. To fill back up.
"Your blood gave me more than a mere taste. How do you think I found you?"
"So you collected my memories?" Lovely. Did he now know she'd been utterly infatuated with him? Had he harvested all her knowledge about the Lore? "Did you enjoy telling your brother and your friends all about my life—my private thoughts and private…deeds?"
"I have never told anyone anything I've seen. Believe me," he added in an odd tone. "And I vow I never will. That is between us."
"Can you vow you'll never use information about my family to harm them?"
He scowled.
"Forget it, then. Doesn't matter anyway," she said, trying to wrench away from him. "There's no starting our life—even if you hadn't been about to do what that night? Break my fingers, my legs?"
He didn't deny these things. "That is in the past and you've paid me for that in kind. If it is consolation you want, know that I've suffered far worse than I could ever have dreamed to inflict on you. For these years, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't drink. The only thing I could do was fantasize about fucking you, with no relief."
Warmth bloomed in her belly, but then she frowned. "It doesn't console me. I just want you to let go of my arms and allow me to walk away. My kind abhors yours. And even if I liked you and you were decent to me, my sisters would kill you, and I'd be ostracized by every being in the Lore. There's no way I'd choose pariah-hood with you over my current life—which I happen to enjoy the hell out of—so back off. I don't want to have to hurt you again."
He raised a patronizing eyebrow at that, which made her bristle, then said, "I can't let you go. I'll never do that. Not until I die."
"I've given you a warning and I'll say only once more—release me."
"It will never happen. So what will make you accept this? A vow? Done. I vow to you that I will never use what I've learned to harm your family. As your husband I could never hurt them anyway because the end would be hurting you."
When she saw he was deadly serious about this, she r
ealized playing with him was over. He was going to try to force her to live with him. Because he felt that was his right over hers.
No different from all the others. Her name should be Myst the Possession.
She wondered if she'd keel over dead if someone finally asked her to be with them.
"Wroth," she whispered, snaking her arms up his chest to twine her fingers behind his neck. He leaned down to hear her. "Do you know what it would take to make me your Bride in truth?"
"Tell me," he said quickly.
"The life leaving my cold, dead body." She kneed him, deciding at the last minute not to break his tailbone with her blow. When he fell to his knees, she backhanded him, sending him flying twenty feet into the courtyard wall.
He bellowed in fury, slow to rise as she sprinted down a breezeway nearing the wrought iron gates at the street. But he traced forward, snatching at her, brushing down her back with his fingertips, then snagging the chain. She screamed in pain when it broke from her.
Great Freya, not the chain. If he figured out its power over her, it wouldn't matter how strong she was as a Valkyrie or how well she fought. She ran for her life, busting through the locked gates, blowing them off their hinges to clatter and spark across the street. For two thousand years it had been unbreakable.
Don't hear, don't hear, run, escape from his voice…
"Myst, stop!" he roared, frustration choking him when he found only the fine, gold strand from her waist.
Yet she froze, nearly falling forward her feet planted so quickly.
She turned to him, sauntering back down the corridor to rejoin him in the courtyard. Licking her lips and smoothing her hair, she said, "That's mine and I want it back."
She reached for it, but he held it high from her. He was not magically inclined—he hadn't believed in the Lore until he was turned—but even he felt the power in the strand of gold. The power of what?
"How badly?"
Lightning streaked the sky behind her. She must want it very badly indeed.
"Would you steal from me?"
"You've stolen from me. Years—you've taken years from me."
"I thought we were even."
"That was until you tried to unman me."
"I will be kinder to you if you give it back."
Her eyes were mesmerizing, and he had to shake himself. "We're past that point. All I wanted was to make my life with yours. And you left me in pain." Earlier, when he'd finally been released from endless nights of torture, he'd felt overwhelming gratitude to her—irrational, since she'd consigned him to it—but he'd known a measure of contentment for the first time in years. Then she'd lashed out again. "After tonight, I understand that you'll never be brought to heel." He clutched the chain, recalling earlier how she'd stopped so suddenly. "Unless…" He trailed off, staring down into her eyes, riveted to his. "Kneel."
Her knees met the stone as if she'd been shoved down.
His eyebrows drew together in shock, his breaths coming fast. "Shiver," he commanded, not quite believing…
She did, and her skin pricked as if with cold. Her nipples hardened and she hugged her arms around herself.
He knew his grin was wicked. Five years of imagining had never prepared him for this. "Grasp my belt."
She looked up with dread, was staring into his eyes pleadingly when he said, "Come."
Chapter Six
As soon as her mind registered the command, her body rushed to obey with a swift, fiery clenching that left her sagging against him, her grasp on his belt the only thing that kept her from falling—as he'd anticipated.
When the bliss finally ended and she could catch her breath, she raised her face, parting her lips to ask—
"Again."
She moaned, unable to release his belt as she twitched and swayed on her knees, brushing her breasts frantically against his legs. "Stop, please…" She pressed her face against his huge shaft, needing it, her body squeezing only emptiness. She ran her mouth over it even as she begged him to stop. Though she'd hurt him, he was recovering right beneath her lips.
"Come harder."
To her shame, she did, arching her back and crying out, opening her knees and undulating her hips for him to come fill her.
As the waves of pleasure relented, she dimly perceived him scooping her up into his arms. She was limp, disbelieving, yet every nerve was on fire. There was blackness, dizziness, and then she was in a new place, in a dark paneled study.
He set her to her feet, but she'd gone boneless from his orders and from…tracing?
In a tremulous voice, she asked, "Where am I?"
He held her until she was steady, then crossed to open a small wall safe. He tossed the chain in and shut the door. "You're at Blachmount, my manor in Eesti. This, Myst, is your new home."
Her lips parted in shock. "You can't just keep me here—"
"Apparently I can do anything I want where you're concerned. This is where you'll stay and where I'm going to show you all the mercy you showed me."
Her eyes went wide.
"Listen carefully. This safe is unbreakable and you will never, never touch the lock. You'll never try to deduce the combination or garner it from me. Do you understand? Answer me."
"Y-yes."
He strode to her, clutched her arm and traced them into what looked like a bedroom. A vampire's lair. With the bed in the corner on the floor as they preferred. She shivered, knowing she was well and truly screwed in every possible sense.
"Undress," Nikolai ordered from the shower.
Her shock had been quickly replaced by rancor, and she glared before obeying. He didn't care. Watching her yanking her clothes off in the steamy bathroom was like witnessing a gift unwrapped.
He stood under the pounding water, his body healing at a rate he'd never imagined. He'd taken a blow from her that would've crippled him for days in the past, and yet he was already hard for her again. In fact, his pain had been the only thing that had kept him from covering her in the courtyard and plunging into her as she writhed from her orgasm, her eyes firing silver with pleasure. Now nothing would spare her.
When she was completely naked, he stared at those plump breasts that had haunted him, his mouth watering at the thatch of auburn curls between her legs. What to make her do? The possibilities were endless. He could tell her to take him into her mouth and see how many times she could make his cock rise under her tongue. He could force her to beg to do it, to beg for him shoved inside her. After these last long years of agony, and now to have such a gift as this chain…
If Wroth had a sense of humor, he might have laughed.
He didn't understand the chain's power, only knew that it was absolute over her. He wasn't one to mull over its origin. If he spent time questioning every new development in his life for the last centuries, he'd have gone mad. It was a tool he needed. Simple enough.
He'd decided to bury the past, but tonight he'd realized she was too wild and too vicious to accept him. She'd proven she was just as his dreams told him. With this mysterious chain, could he make her a biddable wife, in his life—and in his bed?
Earlier, he'd been very conscious of her reaction as she came. She'd rubbed her face against his cock, wanting it. In an alley, with his clothes on, having just had his manhood battered, he hadn't been able to fully capitalize on her need. But in the shower…?
"Join me, Bride."
She was compelled to, though she had an expression of disgust on her face. "You keep calling me that, but you don't have that right. I've given no consent, so I think the term you're looking for is slave."
His eyes narrowed as he took her tiny waist and pulled her into the water with him. "Semantics. The end's the same. You forget that I'm from a time when men needed no consent to take what they wanted."
"And you forget that I lived in those times as well and was glad to get past them. I'd almost forgotten what it was like having to kill all the leeches like you when your pesky little hearts would beat for me." She cast him a loo
k of pure venom. "But it's coming back to me."
When she bent down to wash off her knees, he crossed to sit on the marble bench at the end of the shower, watching her move. "If I weren't a vampire and we had no history, would your body be aroused by mine?"
She'd just stood fully to lift her face to the water. At his words, she clenched her jaw.
"Answer me."
"Yes," she grated.
"Good. Come here. Closer." When she'd finally sidled over, he commanded, "Kneel once more."
"You can't make me do this," she hissed even as she obeyed.
"I'm not going to make you do anything. I will never force you to touch me or force myself upon you," he explained while her expression turned disbelieving. "No matter how badly you've treated me. In fact, just to make this harder on you, I will never touch you or kiss you unless you ask me for it. This will be that much sweeter when you reach to put your hands on my cock or beg me to fuck you."
"Never."
He ignored her protest. "If at anytime in anything we do, you want to deepen the experience, for instance by climbing up here to straddle me, I give you leave."
"Are you off your meds?" she snapped, but he could tell she was nervous.
He gently cupped her face with both hands, thumbing her glistening bottom lip. "Touch yourself."
She gasped, her hand flying to her skin as though magnetized. She stroked up and down between her breasts.
"Lower," he commanded. Her fingers snaked down her flat stomach though she clearly resisted the order. "Lower."
She twitched from the fight, but she obeyed, her fingers descending to her sex.
"Open your knees wide and pleasure yourself as if I wasn't here."
"Don't," she whispered, even as she spread her knees to run her delicate finger against her flesh. His cock pulsed and the head grew slick. After long moments of simply staring in awe as she began trembling and her eyes grew silver, he rasped, "Are you wet?"