A sound of protest rose in her throat. She’d taken off the clothes Selah had made for her the moment she’d arrived, but another man’s odor clung to her skin. She couldn’t make love to Colin like this.
But she didn’t need to say anything; he smelled of someone else, too. He carried her to her bedroom, past the bed.
“There’s a mirror,” she said, but still he went in. His gaze never left her as his shirt fell to the floor, his pants. They stepped beneath the steaming spray together.
The tension in his body eased when she pulled the curtain closed; it heightened when the scent of her soap rose around them. He lifted her. The tile formed cold squares against her back, the individual shapes sliding together into one as Colin filled her.
It wasn’t enough.
He braced his hands as if he intended to stay within her forever; hard and fast was best but now she loved slow, slow. How long had he been inside her?
It wasn’t enough.
She writhed and pushed; her head fell back and the spray shivered like ice over her skin. Too tight. Too much.
Her shields were down. She couldn’t break through. “Colin. Help me. Please.”
His teeth closed over her nipple, his fangs scraped the softness surrounding. His cock thrust deep, every push and pull tearing a violent groan from his chest. And still…
“I can’t.” Panic gnawed at the edges of her arousal.
“It’s the blood, Savi. You have to bite yourself.” Water streamed over his face, dripped from his lips. He tucked his chin beside her neck; his body gentled against hers. Despair thickened his voice. “And I cannot even give you this.”
She had nothing to give him, either. And though an orgasm ground roughly through her when she sank her fangs into her bottom lip, there was little pleasure in it.
Except that it was with him.
“Where will you go first?”
She barely heard him above the beat of his heart against her spine, the rhythm of his breath into her hair. For hours, they’d lain together in her bed, his arms surrounding her, her legs twined with his.
“Eastern Europe, I think. I’ll learn Romany.”
He pressed a kiss to her nape. “Do not invoke any curses.”
“I won’t. I just don’t want to rely solely on Michael to figure out how to break yours.”
“Savi—”
“It’ll give me something to look forward to,” she said quietly. “I like the idea that someday, even if you’re still anchored to Chaos, you’ll be able to walk outside without it screaming at you from a billion cars and their rearview mirrors.”
“A billion? Such melodramatic exaggeration, sweet.”
“I think it comes with the fangs,” she said, and snuggled a little closer into him. She couldn’t get any closer. “Will you help me take care of Nani? After a while, she won’t be able to live by herself. I won’t put her in a nursing home.”
“Castleford may battle me for the privilege, but I shall relish both his defeat and Nani’s presence in my home, wherever she deems it shall be. Will you not take a few weeks and visit with her at Beaumont Court? I should like you to become acquainted with my family. Even,” he said softly, “if I am not there to perform the introductions. And Derbyshire produces some of the finest blood in the world; you’d not regret it.”
“Maybe for a day or two, I could.” Outside the window, the sky began to lighten. She should get up and close the blinds. Would he leave while she slept? Would it be easier that way?
“You’d be welcome to stay much longer.”
“I know. It’s not that.” She tried to look at him, but his hands held her fast. Settling her cheek against the pillow again with a sigh, she said, “Varney wasn’t dazed.”
He stiffened. “Dazed—?”
“He won’t forget. Like Roberta did. Like all of yours do. I’ll have to keep moving.”
Horror strangled his voice. “No, Savi. Oh, God…no. You cannot live like that. If this is your alternative, you must stay.”
“I don’t have a choice, just like you don’t. I can’t share my blood with another vampire; I’d just be a burden, sucking on different members in a community without offering anything of my own.”
“You can continue with the projects you’ve already begun, at Polidori’s and at SI. No one questions your value. No one thinks you anything but an asset.”
“All of those projects can be continued online.” She gritted her teeth. They’d been through this.
“What of protection? We need you here; you destroyed a demon with little effort. We’ll not be challenged again.”
“I can’t live like a glorified parasite off the employees at Polidori’s—and do you want to go in every night wondering who I fucked and fed from? It would kill me. It would hurt you.”
“There are humans,” he said tightly. “You’ll not have to see them again; neither will I.”
“But humans will remember—I’ll be able to heal them and they won’t have any evidence, but they won’t forget me. I’ll risk exposing all of us if I stay in one place and feed from a different human every night. And the vampire communities aren’t ready for—”
“Bloody hang everyone!” His teeth clenched; she could hear them grinding together in his effort to control his response.
“I can do it.” Her throat ached. “I have money. I can create all of the necessary IDs and different identities so that I can’t be easily traced. I can alter or erase any financial trail. Even if someone realizes there’s a pattern, it’ll be hard for them to pin me down. And once vampires go public, I won’t have to.”
“You’ll run for a decade?”
“It’s not running.” She forced a smile. He couldn’t see it, but it made it easier to lie to herself. “It’s hunting. You were happy. Why can’t I be?”
“Because, my sweet Savitri, you are not me.”
“Then I’ll be content knowing that you are happy. You loved hunting for two hundred years, and when you go back to it, it’ll be just as good as ever.”
“That’s a sodding pile of bullshite, Savi. I was not in love for two hundred years.”
“So we’re both going to be miserable?” She tried to move, and could not. She kicked her legs at him in frustration. “Why won’t you let me look at you? I’m going to leave tomorrow and you won’t even let me see you one more fucking time?”
“Because I need it more than I need the next beat of my heart.” His breath shuddered against her neck; his chest heaved against her back. “What use is a reflection when I’ve you to see me and think me beautiful? And if you look at me again, I simply don’t know that I could let you go. Oh, Christ, sweet—don’t cry. I cannot bear your tears.”
“I can’t yours. I can’t any of this.”
But what other choice did they have but to bear it? His blood burned humans and vampires from within; her blood might physically transform him into something terrible, something unrecognizable.
The honey-gold sheet glowed orange. She covered her face, pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. Nosferatu-born. Hellhound-born.
She’d already burned…had she been tempered by it or weakened?
“I’m strong,” she whispered.
His eyelashes tickled the short ends of her hair as they swept down. “My vanity is immense,” he said. “In two hundred years, there has been little that I’ve obsessed over as much as my appearance.” Her heart constricted, until he added, “And there is nothing about which I’ve more certainty.”
They lay in silence. She could not stop shaking. Her body would rattle itself apart. His mental image of himself was solid; his portraits were evidence of it. But would it be enough to save him? Would the method of her transformation be enough to save her? Or would it kill them? What hadn’t they considered…what couldn’t they consider, because they just didn’t know?
There were too many variables; it was impossible to predict an outcome. They could only hope the odds were stacked in their favor.
/> “Savitri,” Colin said softly, and she turned to him. “Perhaps we should see what comes next.”
Her shivers eased. His cheeks were warm and wet beneath her questing fingers. “Are you sure?”
He nodded tightly. “It is well worth the risk.”
It was to herself, but she risked him, too. Still, she rose up on her knees, and when he sat up against the headboard, she swung her leg across his hips, straddled him. “Oh, god. Oh, god.” She kissed him, pulled back to look, then kissed him again. “We’re so stupid. This is so stupid.”
“Mad. Reckless.” His mouth was warm against her frantic lips. “I love you, Savi. I love you.” He pushed into her. Her back arched. So good. If she died, it would be like this.
But she wanted more. “Will you lower your shields?”
His eyes widened for an instant; then he laughed softly and a heady, textured scent flooded the air. Citrus. Sandalwood.
“Oh, god. It’s just like your cologne. But better.”
“My cologne,” he said, “is just like me.”
It would be. She inhaled; bliss rolled through her. She rocked with it. Euphoria spiraled from her sex, filled with him. Her lungs, filled with him. Her mind—“Let me go first.”
She felt the icy slide of fear, the blunt denial in him before he said, “No. No, Savi.”
“You’re stronger than I am,” she said. Her gaze dropped to his neck. “I can’t do what you do—I can only make it feel good. But you won’t be incoherent. If something goes wrong, you might be able to stop me.”
“If my blood hurts you…” He shook his head. “No.”
“If it does, it will whether I go first or last.” Her thumbs smoothed over his cheeks. Crimson light glistened across the sharp angles, cast shadows in the hollows beneath. “And you’ve never had someone feed from you like this. Not to give you pleasure.” Only nosferatu and wyrmwolves who’d offered pain; only men and vampires who’d wanted immortality and power from him and died of it. “I want to be the first. And if it’s the only time…I’ll just regret that I couldn’t leave you senseless.”
“You do. Kiss me again. And again. Bloody hell, we are mad. Your eyes are shining, sweet. Are you frightened?”
“Yes.” Her blood roiled through her. “But more afraid of eternity without you.”
“Oh, Savi. I am, too.” And she could see it in his face, that enthralling beauty that came over him when he was overwhelmed—with rage, with fear, with passion or beauty.
With love.
A final kiss, and then his breath stilled as she touched her lips to his neck. Everything stilled—even, she was certain, her heart.
Her fangs pierced his skin.
I love you. It slipped over her tongue, and she didn’t know if it was hers or his. Or if there was a difference.
Oh, god, and he tastes so good.
“Oh, sweet,” he said, and his hoarse laugh rumbled across her lips. “It’s better than good. It feels incredible.” His hands gripped her hips, and he thrust.
It doubled within her, the pulse of Colin’s pleasure through his blood, the tight clench of her slick heat around his shaft. His moan reverberated against her tongue. She swallowed, drew more. Opened her senses, and awkwardly tried to slide in.
His mind welcomed her. Oh, god. Everything beautiful, radiating an exquisite brilliance. Was this how he saw her? And there was darkness alongside it, unhidden. He tensed and breathed a denial as her mental touch flitted over it; she tasted, expected bitterness, but found it rich and thick and deep.
“Savi…tell me,” he said, his voice strained. “Are you hurting?”
No.
This was the opposite of pain.
His relief rose through her like heated air. Gingerly, he set his teeth against the curve between her shoulder and neck. His palms flattened over her hips, up the length of her spine.
A trickle of blood, then gentle suction. Not the rapture.
Wait, Savi. I want to be certain. He drank slowly, measuring each swallow.
And in that moment of quiet, she felt the pleasure her blood gave him, flowing through his veins and uncoiling within her. Caution accompanied it, his careful test of her emotions, the tender probe against her memory.
Savi didn’t know how to invite him in. I’m sorry.
His amusement melted like spun sugar on her tongue. Don’t apologize, sweet. Just hold on.
It gathered beneath her skin—beneath Colin’s skin—large and powerful and spinning toward her. Her hands clenched on his shoulders. His heart raced against hers.
She swallowed and it roared through her, familiar and just as impossible as before, and all the better for experiencing his through their blood link.
She writhed and shuddered, but there was more, and it shook from her, passed into him.
Colin growled and then she was on her back, and he burrowed deep, hard. Her legs wrapped him tight. His blood filled her mouth, and everything he gave her, she sent back.
He stiffened, thrust with fangs and his blood and his cock, and it hit her again, at a higher pitch. Higher.
A feedback loop. Painful, ratcheting and rising with each stroke, each draw. She couldn’t let go. He grabbed hold of her mind, tore across it on a frenzied wave of pleasure.
And still higher. The tension spread her thin, long and taut and brittle. On the verge of fracturing.
But it was dawn that broke; the sun spilled through the window, across the far wall. Daysleep dragged her down, tried to take her from him, but Colin surrounded her body, shielded her mind with his. Didn’t allow her to fall; didn’t allow her to burn.
Don’t be afraid, sweet. Don’t be afraid.
But even he was swept along by it, and she tasted his fear just below the ecstasy. His body plunged deep and deep, and the orgasm spread through her again, wound her higher. And then his as he came, pulsing into her, his rapture into her blood, back into his. Cycled again. And again.
Too much.
She shattered out from beneath him.
Brilliant, sweet Savitri. How perfect her mind was; how clear and detailed every memory.
She’d claimed it hadn’t hurt, and their mental link had confirmed the truth of it—but Colin was relieved when the fractures began to close, to heal. He had an eternity to repeat the process, to slip through the fissures and examine everything that made up Savi.
That was, when she stopped showing him images of himself.
His hair was a terrible mess, but he wasn’t surprised it looked so bloody spectacular that way. And she apparently adored it, so he’d not change it anytime soon.
Exhaustion quickly enveloped her; the few remaining cracks surrounding her memory sealed shut, pushing him outside. She’d been using her fangs to reopen his punctures, to keep the blood flowing…but now even that effort seemed too much.
Colin floated along with her until he couldn’t hold her up, and let her sink into the daysleep.
Then, to his astonishment, he’d barely a moment to pull the blankets over them before it took him down as well.
Savi woke from dreams almost as lucid as life…and they immediately began to slip away. No surprise in that; even her memory could not hold on to them—had never been able to.
Colin lay on his stomach next to her, his face in her pillow. Not breathing; his heart beating a sluggish tempo. She slid her hand across his shoulder. Warm.
Daysleep.
Early for it, but perhaps the past evening had taken its toll on him. The past weeks, drinking the animal blood. She wouldn’t worry yet; it was just after sunset, but he’d always been terribly lazy, never waking the moment the sun dropped below the horizon.
She had.
Curling around him, she waited. Nothing felt different, though it was difficult to tell: she’d barely had enough experience with her body as a vampire. But there was no pain. Her skin was still cold. She waved her hand in front of her face; her eyes weren’t glowing, but perhaps they only did that when her shields were down, or she was afra
id.
Her ring was still missing.
She spent fifteen minutes trying to feel around her mind for her hammerspace before she gave up. Hugh could teach her. Or Sir Pup could. What had she looked like as a wolf? Could she talk to other dogs?
This was killing her.
She slipped out of the bed. It would only take her a few moments. Almost sliding across the slick bathroom tile in her hurry, she stopped and stared at the mirror in surprise. Everything was the same.
Not for long. She activated the symbols; the bedroom was spelled, and it extended into the bathroom, but this way Colin wouldn’t be disturbed when she lowered her psychic blocks and maybe even howled—
Her reflection wavered; she faded. The shower curtain’s bold diagonal pattern appeared through her, like a double-exposed photograph. Silent screams ripped through the small room.
She didn’t see herself transform.
Savi prepared the breakfast out of habit, rather than hunger. Orange juice. A frozen blueberry waffle. She didn’t want to eat it.
Why hadn’t Colin woken yet? In three minutes, she would fetch Hugh and Lilith. Two.
She heard his first deep draw of breath, and sagged back against the counter. Listened as he shuffled into the bathroom, pulled on his pants. As the water ran, and the sound of him brushing his teeth.
And his strangled cry of surprise.
He was still faster than she. Before she’d taken a step, he was standing in the kitchen, looking wildly about. Her toothbrush dangled from his mouth. He pulled it out, grabbed her orange juice and gulped down half of it.
“Colin—oh, god,” she said, and covered her face, began giggling when his lips turned down and he stuck out his tongue as if to rid it of a terrible taste. “Orange juice after mint is bad.”
He tore off a bite of the waffle, chewed. Grimaced again. “That’s revoltingly tasteless.”
She pointed toward the syrup.
His gaze narrowed on her. “I’ve something sweeter in mind.” His kiss was flavored of orange and mint, and she clung to him until she was breathless. And continued, because she didn’t need to breathe.
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