Demon Moon

by Meljean Brook

  “I know.” She blinked, then lowered her forehead to his chest. “And Michael told me that I probably couldn’t, anyway. He doesn’t know how the taint would manifest in me during the transformation. It would be too dangerous. The fever nearly killed me, and that was just ingesting a little bit of blood and venom; it’s impossible to say what transformation would do.”

  “You asked him? When?”

  She turned her head, lay her cheek against his shoulder. She glanced up at him, then looked away, watched her fingers tracing a pattern over the hollow of his throat. “Just after the fever broke—about a week after.”

  Before he’d returned from England. Before they’d made their agreement to try friendship. “Why?”

  She seemed to contemplate the contrast of her skin against his for an extraordinary amount of time. “I want to see what happens,” she said finally, and though her eyes remained dry, tears hoarsened her voice. “When I think of all you’ve seen and experienced in two centuries—and Hugh and Lilith, what they’ve seen…” Her hands fisted. “And I expect that if the demon doesn’t manage to kill us this month, the next fifty years are going to be pretty freaking amazing. People are coming up with stuff all the time, changing all the time. But I want more than that. I want a hundred, five hundred, a thousand. Ten thousand. Can you imagine? I just want to see it.” Her words slowly dropped to a whisper. “I would’ve eventually asked Lucas or Fia or someone to turn me…but then I took that flight.”

  She shrugged carelessly, but yearning emanated from her psychic scent as clearly as her desire had earlier. Colin brushed his fingers through her satiny cap of hair, unable to speak. If he’d had the power, he’d have transformed her at that moment. He’d never considered it, except to think of how it would deny him any future with her, but he should have realized…someone with her extreme curiosity, with immortality all around her and the ability within reach—but then taken from her with an accidental swallow of blood and venom.

  It would have been easier had she never known the possibility existed.

  She forced a bright smile, flicked another glance up at him before her lashes lowered again. Her shields rose, as if to spare him from the pain of her need.

  He should have been grateful; his pain was more than enough that he couldn’t ease hers.

  “And then I thought I could sacrifice myself saving someone’s soul from a demon and turn into a Guardian, but Michael said no to that, too. Because of the taint. But that’s okay, because I really don’t want to be shot or stabbed or jump off a bridge or whatever it takes to sacrifice oneself. And I probably wouldn’t have been a very good Guardian, anyway. In some ways, I’m too much like Hugh. I enjoy having free will. Though if I was a Guardian, we could…”

  She didn’t finish, but he could have if the tightness of his throat had allowed speech. As a Guardian, she could have fed him without having to feed from him. She would have been immortal and, even serving the Guardian corps, would have been able to make a life with him. As Selah and her vampire partner had together.

  Swallowing, Savi began moving her fingertips across his chest, down over his stomach. “Anyway, your heating bill wasn’t the condition I had in mind.”

  “Anything you want, sweet, and it’s yours,” he said, his voice rough. Anything but fidelity and immortality; devastating, that the two things she wanted most he could not offer. Yet it was more important than ever before not to give her false hope; he would not dangle anything in front of her only to take it away. But the first—there must be a way, even if he had to cut off his cock each night he fed from anyone other than Savi.

  It would grow back. And after fifty or sixty years…he would live every single bloody day for her.

  “You don’t need more than a drop or two to come, right? You aren’t going to feed from me tonight, just take enough for that.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t want you to send me the…the…whatever you send them.” When he stiffened, she raised her head and explained, “I have a feeling that I won’t be too coherent if you’re doing that to me.”

  Relaxing slightly, he tapped his forefinger against her mouth. “You won’t be all that coherent, regardless.”

  She pressed her lips together, then buried her face against his neck, began laughing. After a few moments, she wiped her eyes and said, “I want to see you come. I watched you in Polidori’s.” She sighed sweetly in memory, her gaze on his lips. “It was beautiful. I want to be here for it.”

  His heart ached with need, as if it wanted to leap from his chest and enfold her within it. She would kill him before the month was out. “The bite is painful, Savi. The pleasure takes that away.”

  “It’s not that bad.” She waggled her eyebrows, probably to divert him away from recollection of how she knew that. “And I like a little pain. We’ll do the rest when you feed from me tomorrow.”

  Her lashes fell, her smile widened, and a terrible certainty rose up in him. No, it hadn’t been the bite in Caelum that had hurt her, but what had followed. She’d not have forgot it.

  Was that why she postponed it? Curious, impetuous Savitri—stalling rather than discovering how good it could be.

  He dreaded her answer, but he forced the question: “Are you frightened? Do you think it will be like Caelum?”

  “Yes,” she admitted softly, and Colin was quite certain Hell had descended on him. “But not for the reason you think.”

  He couldn’t respond. What other reason could there be?

  “It’s because of Caelum, but not what you did to me. Just…Caelum itself. Or leaving it.” Savi paused, and turned, propping her chin on the roll of her fist. Her brows arched. “Have you seen the Taj Mahal?”

  He blinked. “Yes.”

  “I spent a week in Agra when I was in India last time. I was there on a perfect, incredible day.” Her gaze unfocused. “A cerulean sky, the stone blindingly white. And the symmetry of it, the design…anyway, I’ve always thought even if someone didn’t typically like Mughal architecture, the dome, they’d have to agree that it’s one of the most beautiful sites in the world. Maybe the most beautiful. When were you there?”

  “Nineteen hundred and three. I toured the colonies after Emily and Ramsdell…after I left England, and before settling here.” He lightly pinched her bottom when her eyes widened. “Savitri, I’ll tell you of my travels another time.”

  She pressed her lips together and nodded. After a moment, she said, “It wasn’t the same. I’ve seen the Taj before—and when I saw it again, it wasn’t the same. There was wonder, and awe, but nothing like before. All I could think when I stood there was that I’d had something better, a million times better, and had to let it go. That I’ll never have it again. And it hurt. You must know.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes.” Evidence of it filled his studio; she’d see it soon enough.

  “Maybe it’s even worse for you; you had two months.”

  “Perhaps it made it easier.”

  She shrugged. “How does one quantify and compare that kind of loss? It’s impossible. Not worth the attempt.” Absently, she traced a circle on his chest, drew a square over it. “The anxiety attacks have been worse since I came back—the need to run. And running from you was easy, but from that loss?”

  “It’s impossible.” His voice was rough.

  “I try not to think of it, but…” She trailed off with a sigh. “And despite knowing how lucky I am that I went—and that I have this memory to take me back whenever I want—I wish it could fade, too. It’s a blessing and a curse at once.” She met his gaze and cocked her head. “Does that sound whiny? ‘Woe is me, poor little rich girl’?”

  “A bit,” he said, his lips quirking.

  She wrinkled her nose, huffed out a breath. “Yeah. So, anyway, last night when I realized I couldn’t ever forget what you’d do to me, it freaked me out. Because how will anything else compare to it? It can’t; it won’t.”

  His relieved laughter disturbed her balance; she
slipped from his side, sat up. “Oh, sweet—I’ll not be sorry for that.”

  She wrapped her arms around her bent knees, stretching the sheet into a tent over her legs. “Not men or sex. You ass. I’m talking about what I feel for you, and that I’ll go into it knowing that I have to leave in a month. That it will be more to me than anything I’ve ever had; but unlike other women you’ve fed from, I’ll never forget it. And that everything I feel in the future will be pale and insipid in comparison. It’ll be like Caelum all over again. That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  It seemed a simple solution to him: Don’t leave. But he couldn’t ask her that, couldn’t ask her for a commitment when he did not know if he could offer anything in return.

  Yet she had made a commitment. Had made this month-long bargain after she’d realized the consequences of it. “You’re afraid, but you’re not running. Is your curiosity so strong?”

  “Yeah. But also because it’s too late; even without your superpowered orgasm, this is already more than anything else I’ve ever had. And I don’t know if I’ll have another chance like this again.”

  “Then why wait until tomorrow?”

  “Because I don’t know how or why Caelum affected us like it did. And I won’t know the reason behind your power, or how it works, or what it will do to me. Or if, even with this memory, it will seem like it isn’t real.” She turned, lay against his chest. “But this, I’m certain of. And when I leave I’ll know that I’m pining over something that genuinely existed between us, instead of…magic. I just want to wait one day, so that I can say for certain: it was just you and me.”

  Nodding tightly in agreement, he drew her mouth down to his. Her eyes closed as he kissed her; the soft clinging of her lips, her breath, wrapped around him and rooted themselves deep. The rough stroke of her tongue across his. The play of her hands over his skin.

  He eased her onto her back; her neck arched, and he licked a trail down her chin, her throat. Her muscles tensed beneath his hands, as if in anticipation of his bite. But he had not finished.

  Allow me to give this to you.

  She moaned as his lips closed over her breast, as he tugged her nipple between his teeth, as he licked and suckled the taut peak. Her fingers threaded into his hair, urged him to its opposite, and he eagerly followed her direction.

  Anything you ask of me.

  “I’m sorry,” she gasped, and sweet, warm flavor flooded into his mouth through her skin. “I forgot.”

  He had, too. Hadn’t cared for his pleasure over hers.

  When had she effected this change in him?

  Standing in the middle of a park, fearless and aroused? Across a restaurant, with her laugh and her playful smile? In a parking lot, her bleeding hand over his mouth? Outside a mirrored room, a kiss from her lips? Holding a sword over a wyrmwolf’s neck, terrified yet determined to see it through?

  Caelum?

  I’ve fallen in love with you.

  Of course he had.

  “Don’t apologize, sweet,” he said against her belly. His tongue flicked into her navel. “It happens to the best of us.”

  With a strangled laugh she looked away from him, turning her cheek against the pillow. “Are you the best?”

  “I’m exponentially greater than that.”

  As he’d hoped, she raised her head. Her warm, liquid brown gaze met his; her lips trembled. She blinked quickly, her eyes glistening. “You remember me saying that?”

  “Yes. And you’ve enthralled me again, my sweet Savitri.” He lowered his mouth, watched her face as he licked through her moist heat. Soft, slippery. Cinnamon and peach, the psychic scent of her arousal and the flavor that might have been from Heaven or Hell or Chaos, but that he would always associate with Savi.

  Her thighs clenched beside his shoulders. She whimpered from between her teeth. She was tight around his fingers. Hot. He slid them deep. Closed his lips over her clitoris, stroked his tongue, firm, rough.

  “It’s too much,” she whispered brokenly.

  His fangs scraped alongside her sex as he dragged his tongue down to his fingers; she keened softly. No pain, no blood, only her surprise.

  Her head tilted back, her teeth digging into her lower lip. Her small breasts rose and fell with each panting breath.

  He stopped.

  She looked at him. Released her lip. “I didn’t bite—”

  Colin did, gently. Soothed it with a lick. She cried out and her hips rocked, a hard involuntary thrust. Again. Her moisture slicked his palm, his mouth. His cock ached with need; his tongue didn’t care.

  Only for her. Always for her, everything for her, from this moment.

  “Oh, god. Ohmygod.” She averted her face, her hands twisting on the sheets.

  Perhaps a little for him. He ceased all movement, waited.

  With a frustrated laugh, she glanced back at him. He curled his fingers, angling up to rub against sensitive inner muscle. Her lids lowered. He stopped, hid his grin. She looked at him, then away so quickly he was caught in the midst of another lick.

  “You ass!” she gasped, but she was laughing, and she held his gaze now, only glancing away from his eyes to refocus on the whole of his face, his mouth, the slide of his tongue. Then her laughter broke and ebbed into desperate cries as he pulled her closer, her thigh over his shoulder, and he tasted, fed from her, but hungered for more.

  Her pleas took on a sharp edge; he bit but still drew no blood. He didn’t need it, only the shuddering release that rolled through her, his name from her lips.

  And this, too: he rose up, slid deep before the orgasm eased from her. Her sheath surrounded him, tiny contractions fluttering over his length.

  Her lips parted beneath his. “I want to see you.”

  “I’m not yet done.” A soft, drugging kiss. Another, taking her lips and body in the same unhurried rhythm, until she was moaning low in her throat and the sound filled his mouth, a dulcet echo of the flavor on his tongue.

  Slower now. An immortal man could take his pleasure quickly, knowing there would always be time for more. But a dying man lingered, uncertain of another opportunity.

  And if not death, this exquisite slow fall into oblivion, then love.

  Longer. Watching as ecstasy coiled beneath her skin, watching as she watched him. Her rapid breathing matched his, paced the pounding of his heart. But outwardly he moved leisurely, each languorous thrust pushing him toward rapture.

  Pulling her along with him.

  Her feet rubbed flat against the sheets, her legs trembled. Her fingers clawed at his back, urged him faster, harder. “Colin. Please.”

  “Not yet. Don’t run.”

  Tears gathered in her eyes, but she didn’t look away. “It’s too much.”

  He froze, a dark ache gnawing within him. Too much. He remembered that…here, in this bed, but by the fountain as well. “Don’t cry. Am I hurting you?”

  “No.” It sounded like a sob. Her back arched, her head tilted as if in invitation. She still watched him, sidelong, like an indirect look into the sun. “I thought it was the enthrallment. Caelum. But it’s you.”

  His throat closed, but he regained his measured pace. A great and terrible beauty. She hadn’t looked at him in Caelum, never for very long. Did it remind her of what he’d done now?

  “Are you frightened?” How could he bear it if she was?

  “No,” she breathed. Her hips rose to meet his again, her feet halted their frantic movements. “Overcome.”

  He laughed with relief, buried his face in her neck. Of course she wasn’t afraid. “Oh, Savi. I am, too.”

  Turning, carrying her with him, he leaned back against the pillows, settled her over him with a long upward stroke. She stared down at him, her hands braced on his shoulders, using her knees to lift and sink. Slowly.

  Not afraid. What did she see then? His eyes searched hers. Passion, need—a reflection of his, though not of him. Yet it was easy to see his presence in the perspiration sheened across her cheekbones; her
skin was flushed a deep caramel, her nipples hard and full. He leaned forward to taste them.

  She rose, dropped, and he groaned against her breast. “Do you want me to tell you?”

  Good God. Was he so transparent with her? “Yes.”

  She moved more quickly, but he was too far gone to protest. Dying, yes. In love, yes. But never an idiot. His teeth closed gently over her nipple. Each heated wet slide over his cock wound him tighter, threatened to pull him apart.

  “You cover your mouth when you laugh,” she said, her voice carried on panting breaths. “In public. Yet you never hide anything else.”

  Startled, his gaze flew to hers, his lips unmoving around her breast. She rocked from her waist, holding her torso still, her chin tucked against her throat as she watched him in turn.

  “Not your vanity. It’s out in the open, for anyone to take as they wish. I never thought I’d want to take it. That you’d make me laugh with it.” Her fingers clenched on his shoulders, and she made a tight swivel of her hips. “And the way you move, as if the world is your ballroom. Oh, god.”

  His hands caught her waist, and he held her as he thrust deep, took over. Not what she saw. She was telling him why she was falling in love with him.

  Don’t stop, Savi. Please don’t stop.

  “And you live exactly as you are, without apology. I can trust your appearance; I thought I couldn’t, but I can.”

  Only because she saw him as he was. Her hands cradled his head, and she suddenly pulled him forward, arched her back. His fangs scraped the upper swell of her breast.

  Blood.

  A drop against his tongue, but it hit him like a flood, a powerful deluge through his veins, repeated in the surge of his hips, of his cock. Pulsing, flowing. His eyes widened, held hers through sheer will. The rest of him was beyond his control.

  I won’t let you go.

  “You’re so beautiful,” she whispered, and lowered her mouth to his, her flavor ripening and rushing headlong into him with the last traces of her blood, sending him over.