Blood Red Kiss

by Kresley Cole

  When she palmed his erection through his pants, he threw back his head to bellow.

  My gods. She’d known Wroth was well endowed, but hard, he was like a demon or a Lykae.

  He curved her fingers around his thick shaft and slowly thrust against her palm.

  In a sensual whisper, she asked, “How does this feel when it swells and distends?” She stroked his length, relieved she’d never have to take his uncomfortable size within her.

  “So damned good,” he grated with a shudder.

  “It’s been three centuries?” When she imagined the onslaught of lust clawing at him, her body softened. Could she still desire him—even after he’d planned to torture her? “Well, you are due, I suppose,” she said, unzipping his pants and reaching inside. She thumbed the slick tip of his penis.

  His eyes rolled back in his head, and he groaned, “Yes, touch me.” He thrust again. “Take me in hand.”

  But she only continued her light teasing. “Does your shaft ache to be stroked? Does it throb from that hot, undeniable pressure to come? Your cock’s so heavy and tight—you must be close to exploding.”

  Brows drawn, he stared at her. “Why are you tormenting me?”

  Because I can.

  His eyes were growing black. Soon he would attack.

  Five, four, three, two . . .

  Wroth snatched her wrists in a viselike grip, securing them behind her back. Then he slanted his mouth over hers, seeming to brand her with his lips and tongue. He took her mouth deeply, possessively.

  She found herself responding. When her tongue met his, he groaned into their kiss. Sharing breaths, tongues twining . . .

  He left her panting when he bent down to lick her nipples, sucking at them through her blouse. His other hand cupped her sex, fingers rubbing a moan out of her.

  Yet he abruptly drew back from her. “Come with me.”

  Damn it, dawn neared. Where were her sisters? She had to keep him here. She cried, “But I can’t wait!”

  “Won’t claim my Bride in a dungeon.”

  “Wroth”—she gripped his cock hard while whispering in his ear—“my body weeps for this coming inside me.”

  With a growl, he tore open her blouse and bra. He stared at her naked breasts and licked his sexy lips. Then he set in, suckling her stiff nipples.

  Her back arched, pressing her breasts to his gorgeous mouth. To his wicked tongue. When had she begun undulating her hips for him?

  “I’ve waited for you,” he rasped against her breast. “So long I’ve waited.”

  One hand pinned her wrists above her; the other shot up her skirt and ripped her panties away. His fingers roved between her thighs, hot and slow. “As soon as I saw you, I wanted it to be you.” Using her moisture, he thumbed her clitoris in slick, mind-numbing circles.

  Unable to control herself, she rocked to his fingers. Myst made a decision then. There was simply no way she could miss out on this. She gave an abandoned moan, and her sharp emotions triggered lightning outside.

  “My Bride’s so wet.” He sucked a hardened nipple till it throbbed, then turned to the other one for the same attention.

  She arched her back more, offering up her breasts. “Yes, yes, it feels so good.” She yearned to stroke his shaft, but her hands were trapped.

  He sank one finger into her sheath, withdrew, then returned with two. He slid them into her unhurriedly, but with enough force that she was rocked to her toes each time.

  She widened her legs, about to come around his fingers. “Don’t stop.” She panted, so close.

  “Never.” He thrust harder, until she didn’t know if her toes even touched the ground.

  When he spread his fingers inside her, she whimpered at the overwhelming fullness. She hooked her leg over his bent knee, opening herself even more to him.

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

  “Ah, yes . . . Wroth,” she moaned again, about to succumb to his stroking. “So close! So—” She gave a strangled scream. Pleasure seized her as she toppled over the brink. “Yes! Yes!” Rolling her hips to his masterful touch, she orgasmed for the vampire, squeezing his fingers with a fiery, wet pulsing.

  “I can feel you, feel you coming!” he grated. Even when she was too sensitive, he didn’t stop until she helplessly cried his name.

  Her release had staggered her—and made him groan as if he’d come as well.

  Spent, she sagged against him, still weakly undulating for him. Her nipples were damp and achy from his tongue.

  He cupped the back of her neck and yanked her up to face him. Lust made his voice harsh as he said, “I will be good to you, Myst. I will protect you. You are mine.” When he fumbled with his pants to free himself, her heavy-lidded eyes widened.

  He’d said those things because he planned to shove that huge shaft inside her. To claim her. A true vampire’s Bride.

  Alarm made her heart race. Yet then, she heard a whisper at the dungeon entrance.

  Before Nikolai could react, Myst flung herself away. Why would she do that? He reached 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 inside the dungeon and jerked his head around, fangs sharpening in fury.

  “Look at the lovebirds.” A creature similar to Myst was standing at the cell door, a bow at the ready.

  A second female with glowing skin joined the first, 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?” Nikolai demanded, stalking toward them.

  With supernatural speed, the archer nocked an arrow and let it sing. He traced to dodge it; she’d anticipated his move, and the arrow pinned him to the wall. A second arrow took his other shoulder, drilling its tip half a foot into the stone.

  Casting her a killing look, he lunged forward to 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.

  Myst had pulled her clothing together and turned toward the door.

  “Don’t you walk away from me!”

  “So sorry to interrupt your plans.” She cast him that hurt look. “You almost made me forget 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. “Before you knew you could screw me? Now that your body’s in working order, you won’t flay the skin from mine?”

  “You’re my Bride. Mine. You belong to me.”

  She flew back at him, enraged. The bright one tossed her the dagger, and Myst caught it behind her without looking.

  What the hell is she?

  She pressed the blade to his jugular. Her pupils had turned silver. “If I belonged to every man who wanted it so—or to every vampire I’ve blooded—there’d be nothing left of me.”

  “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.” She grabbed the back of his head and pressed her lips against his, kissing him hard.

  He tasted . . . her blood. Unimaginably warm and rich, it was as exquisite as everything else about her. He shuddered in ecstasy at the luscious taste.

  She drew back with an inscrutable expression on her face.

  “You know I’ll want nothing else now,” he rasped.

  She snapped her teeth at him, then exited the cell.

  “Don’t walk away from me!”

  Myst commanded the others, “Leave him.”

  As he strained to free himself, the other two Valkyries exchanged a confused glance.

  The archer said, “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 released the first time since his blooding?” 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—” A guard charged in, and she leisurely shot an arrow in that direction. Tilting her head at the result, she sighed. “—but Vampire Bride sounds so B-movie. He just dragged you down to B-moviedom.”

  The bright one made her voice overly dramatic: “For that alone . . . he must die. Seriously, Myst. Your ‘husband’ has damaged your street cred beyond repair. Unless you kill him like the others.”

  They were all mad.

  Yet still he was hard, aching for her, for the blood she’d given him just to torture him. “You evil, teasing witch. Kill me then.”

  He might have imagined a flicker of compassion in her eyes, but then she shrugged.

  His hazy mind grasped his future. She was going to abandon him with a body knotted from lust and a taste of blood he would go to his knees for. “You’re the most malicious bitch I’ve ever known.”

  “Flatterer,” she chirped. Across the corridor, she leapt dozens of feet to a barred window. She plucked the metal grid free, as she might a piece of lint.

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

  She offered a hand for the others; the bright one bounded 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.”

  5

  PRESENT DAY

  Never-ending sexual desire that could never be slaked.

  Five years ago, his Bride had knowingly—delightedly—damned Nikolai to this torment. She’d blooded him, giving him his first carnal need as a vampire, then stoked it to a fever pitch.

  Yet he couldn’t lose his seed the first time without his Bride.

  His cock hard and aching, Nikolai tossed in his bed at Oblak. His length throbbed so painfully, sleep was forever elusive. He’d gone weeks without.

  If only she had stayed long enough for him to claim her, or merely to touch her skin as he’d taken his own ease. She could’ve spared him. But she’d wanted him to suffer.

  Why else would she have given him her blood? The minuscule drop taken directly from her flesh had cursed him in two ways. It’d made any other blood taste like tar to him. And it’d transferred her memories to him—just as the Forbearers feared.

  With her living blood came dreams where her memories unfolded. They were so realistic that he experienced scents she’d smelled and textures she’d touched. Sometimes he could even feel her hands clench in anger.

  But he’d told no one, because he didn’t want to lose power within their army—or be executed.

  Each sunset, he checked his eyes for the telltale red. Any day he actually managed to sleep, the same series of dreams/memories plagued him, subtly growing in detail. . . .

  Finally he stopped tossing, and the oblivion of sleep overtook him.

  His first dream found her atop a hill, the sun shining bright, snow still on the ground. He perceived her every sensation—the sway of the chain around her waist, the smell of the nearby sea, brine on a cold day.

  She spoke an ancient language Nikolai shouldn’t understand, but he did. “I’ve cursed you to your hell,” Myst hissed at the sight of a gravestone. She roiled with so much hostility, she must have murdered whatever being lay there.

  Another dream revealed a drunken Roman senator kneeling at her feet. “At long last, I’m about to have Myst the Coveted,” he slurred. “And you’ll no longer be coveted, you’ll be possessed.” He gave a broken laugh. “You’ll make me twist on your little hook no longer.”

  Myst the Coveted. The full name of Nikolai’s tormenter.

  She would have to be well over a thousand years old. Maybe two millennia.

  The Roman took Myst’s dainty foot in his mouth. As she slowly lifted her skirt for him, he sucked her toes and masturbated.

  The first time Nikolai had experienced that dream, he’d dreaded its sick conclusion. When another scene interrupted it, he’d felt relief. 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 sizzled with electricity. When the men yelled and gave chase, she stifled a smile.

  As ever, Nikolai forced his mind away before a dozen Vikings rutted on his Bride. To her delight. . . .

  At last, a new dream arose. Myst sat with a group of females—all half sisters—around a great hearth in some residence. Their clothing indicated early twentieth century. The snow outside was packed so high it covered half of the window.

  Nikolai knew their faces as well as Myst did. He recognized the archer as Lucia, the bright one as Regin the Radiant. The vacant-eyed Nïx was the oldest, believed to be a soothsayer. One named Daniela the Ice Maiden was part ice fey, with freezing skin that burned when touched by anyone not of her kind. Their leader, a somber creature named Annika, rocked a motherless baby girl.

  They were meeting about the baby’s fate—a niece to them all. Annika wished to keep her. . . .

  Myst frowned at the little girl, confused by the stirring of some feeling.

  “How are we to care for her, Annika?” Lucia asked.

  “That doesn’t matter!” Regin snapped. “How can you bring a vampire among us when they slaughtered my people?”

  A vampire child?

  Daniela knelt beside Annika and touched her arm with a pale, icy hand. Myst shivered to think of Danii’s pain from that rare contact. “Sister, the babe needs to be with her own people. I know this well.”

  Annika shook her head determinedly. “Her ears. Her eyes. Emmaline is 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.”

  Nïx laughed. “Two of Emma’s three grandparents on the Valkyrie side were gods. Perhaps she’s more divine than Valkyrie or vampire?”

  Three grandparents? Was Myst descended from gods as well? How could she feed off electricity? Nikolai’s heart was racing.

  Annika said, “I will keep Emma safe from the Horde and guide her to be all that was good and honorable about the Valkyries before the ages took their toll on us.” Her words were laced with sadness and triggered a memory Myst hated.

  Nikolai wanted to see it but couldn’t. Instead, he had vague impressions of Myst’s parents: a fierce Pictish princess—who’d plunged a dagger into her own heart rather than be taken alive by an enemy—and, yes, gods.

  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 bons temps rouler. . . .”

  New Orleans.

  Nikolai 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.

  He hadn’t known they even existed. A being from legends told around campfires was linked to him for eternity.

  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 Nikolai.

  She might be divine.

  He glanced down at his straining erection. Even his hatred couldn’t quell his relentless need for her. He fought the impulse to take his shaft into his fist, knowing he could never bring himself to come, knowing it would only increase his pain.

  She’d sentenced him to this for five years. Before he’d learned there was no relief, he would futilely stroke himself and thrust against the bed, always imagining Myst beneath him.

  Other females repelled him—because they weren’t her. He’d felt his Bride’s incredible softness, her wet desire for him. He’d felt her sheath squeezing his fingers as she’d climaxed from his touch.

  He shuddered, and his cock pulsed hungrily.

  Linked for eternity to Myst the Coveted, a myth-ological being who despised him. The only way he’d keep her forever would be to punish her for that long.

  He knew he coveted her as no other had. And now he knew where to find her.

  6

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

  There were rumors of vampires running about in New Orleans.

  Vampires in Louisiana? Unheard of.

  But a demon friend had sworn he’d seen one, and a phantom had whispered that not just one faction of vampires had arrived, but two.

  If for some reason leeches 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.

  Myst shouldn’t have left that vampire to suffer; she should have killed him.

  She shook her head, needing to stay focused and keep watch. Annika and Daniela were down there somewhere.

  Myst surveyed the Quarter, but couldn’t help sighing at the couples grinding against each other in dark alleys. If Daniela were here, she would blow them a kiss and cool the mortals off, freezing hands to asses and making her sisters chortle.

  Myst supposed the Valkyries were easily amused.

  “Not that I believe actual vampires are here,” Regin said, “but if they were, they should know New Orleans is our turf.” She tossed her blade up, caught the point in her claw, then flicked it up once more.