“Died because of me.”
“No! You’re wrong. He’s alive.”
“Yes, I know, but that is only because the mortal woman brought him back to life after he went through the agony of death. That he lives doesn’t change my own failure. My own guilt. I sent my own brother to his death.”
He had his back to her so she couldn’t see the pain on his face, but she could hear the jagged edge of it in his voice as if torn from him.
“How? Jared went to the Sacred Stones of his own choice.”
Aragon swung around. His dark eyes were haunted. The firelight spewed macabre shadows across his face. “Did he?” he asked harshly. “Even though the other Blood Hunters wanted to give Jared more time, I refused to listen. All I could think about was how evil Pathos had become and that I’d rather Jared died, rather I died myself, than let that happen.” His voice was tight with self-disgust.
“Pathos was a Blood Hunter?” she asked.
“My mentor in the spirit world. It would be like one’s father upon the mortal ground. He didn’t even fight the Tsara’s poison. He couldn’t have, for within two days he’d turned evil. It was a betrayal I couldn’t forgive, and why I now seek to restore the Blood Hunters’ honor as well as atone for what I did to Jared.”
“Guilt,” she said with a soft sigh. “I know how you feel.” She slipped the amulet back on and pressed it against her heart, feeling as if a part of him radiated into her from it. Moving to him, she gazed up into his dark eyes. The pain in them echoed the one in her heart, and she wanted to soothe the sharp edge of it. She slid one hand to his jaw and along the rough stubble of his cheek. Her other hand automatically pressed against his chest, over his heart. He sucked in air, and his lips parted. He wrapped his hand around her wrist, tugging her body flush to his as his mouth descended to hers.
But he didn’t claim her in a darkly passionate kiss as she expected. He stopped, his mouth a whisper away from hers. “I’m unworthy, a warrior who failed and will fade. And I may only have this moment in time. But I want you with everything within me. You make me feel beyond the shadow of my failure, and I want to know the burn of this fire you stir within me. Do you want me despite what I am?”
Want him? More than her next breath. He might be innocent, but she no longer had any doubt that he wanted her as much as she wanted him.
“Yes,” she whispered, unable to turn away from his need, his passion, and this moment.
His kiss hit hard and deep and fast, stealing her breath and her sanity, for she kissed him back, her mind whirling with the dizzying sensations caused by the strength of his passion and the penetration of his spirit and mind into hers. He felt so solid and real and alive that she couldn’t truly believe he could suddenly be gone tomorrow, but she reached for him as if he’d disappear in the next minute.
Aragon groaned as he wrapped his arms around Annette and pulled her body against the insistent throb of his hardening flesh, recalling vividly the images of mating he’d seen in her mind as he’d healed her. The need to know this pleasure with her consumed him. He wanted to share every part of this desire with her. He wanted to feel not only his own pleasure from her touch, but also her pleasure from his, and he sent his mind into her.
Imagine, he whispered into her mind. Imagine what you want me to do. Imagine how you want me to make you feel. Imagine everything you want and let me share it with you.
Concentrating with the eternal core of his being, he opened all of himself to her, even the failure that shamed him and the need that drove him to vanquish Pathos. This is who I am. Take me. Show me all that is unknown to me.
“Yes,” she whispered, but he heard the word in her mind first. She closed her eyes and parted her lips, letting her mind and body surrender to him. He buried one hand in the soft wildness of her hair and kissed her deeply. Her images of passion came to him, tentative and slow at first, then bursting into a kaleidoscope of him touching her and her touching him. With his hand still fisted in her hair, he pressed her back against his arm and pulled her shirt up until the full round softness of her breasts was exposed. Seeing his amulet nestled between her breasts seemed right—as if the noblest part of him, even if it was a part he couldn’t lay claim to, belonged to her. He wouldn’t take his amulet, but he would take her.
He brought his mouth from one rosy peak to the other, relishing the satisfying feel of sucking upon them until she moaned with pleasure, arching against him. Then he lashed the hardened tips with his tongue until her breath came in short gasps, and she struggled with her need to hold onto his shoulders and her want to touch him. With his mind in hers, he could not only see her wants but also feel each frisson of pleasure that vibrated her senses higher and higher.
He too wanted both of his hands and his mouth on her, touching her, tasting her, pleasuring her, and he wanted all of her open to him.
Easing her up, he lifted her shirt over her head and pushed her pants into a puddle at her feet. Then he moved back to gaze at her soft beauty, thinking that of all the beings Logos had created, a woman was the most beautiful, and the man who beheld her the most blessed.
She reached for the waistband of his pants, urging them down, aided by an impatient shove from him. The burgeoning fullness of his mortal flesh jutted from the solid planes of his body, and she ran her hands down his chest until she cupped him, then stroked, making his heated need throb even harder. She explored the length of his legs and back up, returning to his hardened flesh. Her soft mouth and warm lips had his body trembling until he could barely stand.
With a cry of frustration at his weakness, he swung her up into his arms and carried her over to the fire, kneeling down to lay her upon the white cloud of sheepskin there. The scent of her, a mingling of lush flower and woman, was a potent combination that he couldn’t get enough of. His kissed her again, delving deeply into the velvet softness of her mouth before he ventured to know all of her as intimately as their kiss. He licked her lips, kissed the curve of her chin and the angle of her brow. Moving to her neck, he was barely aware of the scent of her blood above the power of their passion, but he knew its pulsing excitement. He relished that her heart hammered in anticipation of what he would do next. Their ragged breaths and groans were a driving crescendo of passionate music, urging him to know more, feel more, claim more.
He lavished her shoulders, then her breasts, with long licks and tiny nips before he cupped the full globes of her breasts and suckled the hardened peaks until she writhed and panted. Following the flat planes and soft dip of her stomach, he kissed his way to the thick thatch of curls that covered the heady essence of her heated desire. He could smell the strength of her want centered there. It was a scent he’d never forget and struck him as his, as if the power of her arousal was for him alone and he claimed it with a kiss. But one taste wasn’t enough. He hungered to lap every drop of desire from her woman’s flesh. Shifting himself to kneel between her legs, he caught her hips in his grip and lifted her hot core to his mouth, delving his tongue into the sweet folds, loving the taste.
She writhed in pleasure until her breaths were ragged gasps.
“Come here,” she cried, reaching for him. “I need you inside me.” With her plea came an image of him driving his hardened flesh directly into the sweet core he’d been drinking from.
He was dying to be inside her. He moved up, and she arched her back off the floor, opening herself to him even more. Grabbing her hips, he drove himself deep, until he could go no farther. His body shuddered from the pleasure vibrating through her and then through him. His gaze sought hers, and his mouth claimed hers. Then she moved against him, thrusting her hips, sending more pleasure that urged him to drive into her again, only deeper and harder than before. Again and again their passion met, stroking the need and the fire until she cried out. As pleasure ripped through her, it exploded inside him. His body spasmed beyond his control, and his spirit hurtled into a heaven he’d never known before, changing him forever. She was wrapped around him
in this new universe, her spirit soaring with his, for this unbelievable heaven, this unimaginable pleasure, was her. Was him being in her. In her mind. In her body. In her spirit. They were one.
And he wanted more.
He rolled them over until he lay beneath her and she could rest upon him. As she slept, he counted the beats of her heart, listened to her contented sighs, and saw her dream of strawberries and him, a dream that had him not only reliving every moment of their mating, but imaging just how he could have the sweetness of her and the fruit upon his tongue at the same time. His loins and his spirit burned again for the heaven of her until he lay there groaning beneath her as his hardened flesh pulsed against her softness while she slept.
Annette woke, realizing the quivering she felt wasn’t in her dreams, but from the man beneath her. She lifted her head from the cradle of his chest and met the toe-curling need in his dark eyes. The sexual energy radiating from him licked teasing flames over her from the inside out. His hands slid everywhere, molding her softness to the hard demand of his desire, making her sex, her body, and her heart weep for more.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Grabbing her bottom, he slid her up until his mouth reached hers and his kiss could say it all. He left her breathless, dizzy for air, dizzy for him. Arching his back as he pushed down on her hips, he entered her fast and hot and thick, filling her impossibly more than before. She groaned with pleasure as she brought her knees up to hug his hips and rose so that Aragon’s questing hands could better reach her aching nipples. Their joining became a furious drive that sent her higher and higher with each thrust of his hips and stroke of his hand. She shuddered as wave after wave of intensifying pleasure washed over her, building tiny climaxes, one upon another, in a way that had her climbing to a release unlike anything she’d ever experienced. She was spinning out of control and completely helpless to his need of her and her need of him. His spirit entered her, wrapped around her, and drew her from herself, making them one in a way years of human experience could never match.
Suddenly Aragon bowed up, lifting her completely, impaling her completely, filling her, fulfilling her. His hold on her hips tightened when he thrust himself inside, and he let out a moan so deep and raw that it rumbled like thunder through the room. It shook the foundations of her heart and triggered her orgasm to a shuddering climax that rode even higher when his orgasm exploded. Her whole being felt as if it had splintered into a thousand pieces as pleasure rocked her over the edge of reason and into the arms and passion of a man she might barely know, but would never forget.
Chapter Nine
S AM PULLED IN behind Nick’s patrol car and shoved his own into park. He’d told his deputy the whole story of the past week from soup to nuts on the ride to the Sno-Med Center.
“You really aren’t bullshitting me, are you?” Nick shoved a hand through his short hair. “The body on the side of the road last week is really a serial killer who’d been executed two years ago?”
“Prints are an exact match. So are the dental records. The body we have is as fresh as if he’d just been wheeled from the electric chair.”
“And this dead killer was what?”
“A spiritual assassin called a Tsara. It infected Jared, which landed Jared on earth. He is or was a werewolf, depending on what happens tonight. I saw him change form last night.”
“And yesterday you really were—”
“Kidnapped by the renowned Dr. Cinatas. Yep, all five of us, me, Emerald, Annette, Erin, and Jared. Woke up bound and gagged on a slab in Sno-Med’s morgue. The fire was a result of our attempt to save Erin. Cinatas shot wild with his gun on the roof, hit the gas tank of the helicopter, and boom. And I can’t do jack shit to prove it without making it harder for us to fight the SOBs, and that would only risk more people’s lives in the long run.”
Nick cursed hard. “I know people who work at Sno-Med. I know people who go to their clinic for treatment.”
“Me too. They’re everybody’s best friend.”
“Dr. Cinatas and—vampires? As in bloodsucking and immortal?”
Sam fisted his hands. “Yeah, and Vasquez’s name is on the list of vampires masquerading as men. But then the bastard never pretended to be anything but a monster. This changes things, you know.”
Nick’s sharp inhale wrenched Sam’s gut. “How? My father is dead, and Vasquez murdered him. Nothing can change that.”
“No, but I can damn sure take the bastard out now. I swore to the military that I’d leave the man alone. Vasquez’s oil cartel is giving OPEC its first real taste of competition, and prices have been dropping significantly.” Not that Sam gave a rat’s ass about the price of gas, but he had to either give his word, or spend the next sixty locked up as a loose cannon. “But if the SOB isn’t human, then all bets are off.”
“If you’re gunning for him, then I’m with you.”
“Forget it.” The thought of Nick in Vasquez’s clutches made Sam break out into a cold sweat. Reed Sinclair had died freeing Sam from Vasquez, and there was no way in hell his son was going anywhere near Belize.
“I’ve been training for it ever since you came back instead of my father. Why do you think I learned to fly a bird in the first place? The only way into Belize’s no-man’s-zone, and the fastest way out, is by helicopter.”
“No,” Sam said again.
Nick shoved open the car door. The plan was for him to give Sno-Med a check, then go catch a couple of hours of shut-eye before they went searching at dawn. “Sam,” Nick sighed. “You know I respect the hell out of you, but this is one thing that’s going to go down no matter what you say. I’ll see you at the helipad in a few. A freaking damn secret tunnel. How in the hell could Sno-Med be as big as it is and nobody the wiser?”
“I’d like to say it’s because the SOBs in charge are that good, but I’m afraid it’s more because the masses are blind sheep who follow anyone who gives them a free lunch.” Sam’s radio crackled from dispatch, spewing out a garbled message. Myra insisted on using the antiquated system despite his repeated efforts to get her to call his cell phone first. He waved Nick off and dialed Myra at the station.
“What?”
“Got complaints coming in from that geezer up on Hades Mountain.”
“What? He’s seeing another UFO at that Hefner-like retreat?”
“Black clouds.”
“What?”
“He’s complaining that he can’t see what’s going on over there because a black cloud is covering the place. He says it ‘ain’t natural’ and wants someone to ride over and take a look-see.”
It was the middle of the night. All the damn clouds were black. Sam pinched the bridge of his nose and glanced at his watch. He could either go check on black clouds or face Emerald back at the station. “Call the geezer, Myra. And tell him I’m on the way.”
It was laughable. He’d rather go to Hades on a fool’s errand than face a pint-sized platinum blond. Coward. To the bone, Sam thought as he wheeled back onto the highway.
Bracing himself against the frigid waves of cold radiating from the black demons, Pathos shifted into their midst with a dozen red demons flanking him. They hovered in the air above the group that had gathered for a council meeting. The black demons, likely plotting the demise of a weaker sect, froze. Their obsidian forms were a grotesque collection of appendages from their vanquished foes, trophies attached Frankenstein-style, only more botched than one could imagine. Some of the parts—arms, legs, ears, noses, and an occasional head or two—had grafted to the host well. Others hung in useless decay, creating such an acrid stench of rot that not even the frigid air could curtail the smell.
Pathos stood, staring down upon the creatures as he waited. The weak spoke first, especially in hell.
Legion didn’t disappoint Pathos. The ten-armed, doubleheaded leader of the black demons rose to his feet, both mouths voicing his outrage. “What is the meaning of this?”
“Come now, Legion. Surely you expected me. Yo
u have something of mine, and I am here to assure its return.”
“I know of nothing. Heldon will hear of your unauthorized intrusion.”
“I’ll be the first to tell him.” Pathos paused for effect. “For you, since you will be unable to. Is harboring Ashoden ben Shashur worth such a loss?”
Legion’s ten arms shifted position as he shrugged, his greedy gaze eyeing the red demons. Pathos could clearly sense the demon’s dilemma. He didn’t want to bring the wrath of the red demons upon him, for they were the one faction large and powerful enough to defeat the black demons. But on the other hand, being the first black demon to acquire an appendage from a red demon would be quite a feather in his cap.
Legion capitulated, as Pathos had expected. “I didn’t realize that you were here for our Vladarian guest. I’ll have you escorted to him.”
Pathos smiled. Extinction was the only thing a black demon was good for. “No need. I can sense exactly where he is now that I am here. I wouldn’t interfere if I were you.”
Pathos swung around, floating swiftly through the fetid demon realm, his keen sense of smell leading him to his offspring and the Vladarian vampire. The red demons at his back took up posts as they passed key exit points. With Cinatas just moments away, an odd tension fluttered inside Pathos’s gut, catching him off guard. Someone had dared to harm his son! He clenched his fist and descended upon Shashur and Cinatas with his fangs gnashing.
They were so embroiled in their own drama that they didn’t even realize they had company.
“What did you do to me?” Ashoden ben Shashur appeared to be yelling, but his voice only rasped like one upon death’s door. Even for someone in hell, he looked terrible. “You will tell me!”
Cinatas was unrecognizable except for his scent and the sound of his laugh as he responded to Shashur’s demand. Chained in one of the black demons’ torture devices—unmatched by any of the Spanish Inquisition’s instruments—he’d been burned and mutilated.
The Lure of the Wolf Page 12