HuntingtheSiren

by Jeffe Kennedy

  She drew up a knee and spread herself wider, leaning back on an elbow while she slid a slender finger into her cleft. She moaned, a brown-sugar and honey sound that softened his bones.

  “Oh, Lapushka. You have me so hot for you. Wouldn’t you like to lick me?” She pressed the finger against her vulva, stroking herself. “Your tongue, your cock could be here. I’ll let you have me. You can have all of me, any way you like, as hard as you like, as many times as you wish. All for a little information you don’t even know why you’re keeping from me.”

  He didn’t know. Hell, he hardly remembered his own name. He wanted her like he wanted… Like nothing ever before.

  Her hips pumped, silken and feline and her eyes fluttered closed. Safe for the brief moment, he seized the opportunity to study her face, the sable sweep of her long lashes, her full lips just pricked with delicate fangs.

  Then her golden eyes flashed open, ensnaring his gaze. His body froze in place, taken out of his control.

  “Gotcha,” she murmured.

  Chapter Four

  It was tempting to go ahead and bring herself off while the delicious human man watched, helplessly hypnotized by her gaze, but she had work to do. She’d read him exactly right this time, that he, possibly alone of all men, would be looking at her face and not her pussy at that moment.

  She knew him now. Recognized the feel of his mind from some pathetic and forgotten village. Most of the people there were dying of radiation sickness. They’d dispatched the ones beyond hope and gathered who could be saved. Just as they were leaving, she’d spotted him watching from an upper story and hit him with a simple stay and forget compulsion. He shouldn’t have retained any memories of her or that night. Clearly he did.

  A most unusual man with an odd yen for her.

  She could use this against him, this inexplicable and dangerous desire that had driven him to pursue her.

  That wasn’t all of it and now was the time to discover what it might be.

  Licking her own juices from her fingers, she took her time walking to him, enjoying the impotent rage and flaring lust in his eyes.

  She laid her hands on those gorgeous pecs, stared into those dark, tormented eyes and kissed him, long and lavishly.

  “Kiss me back,” she ordered. He fought the compulsion, at first giving her the barest press of lips. Enough so she thought he might be able to throw off her yoke. But his own yearning sabotaged him. He gave in and kissed her with all the desperation of a drowning man. His lips lived up to their sensual promise, nearly feeding on her with their lustful insistence. Imogen found herself clinging to him, something fragile cracking inside and bleeding out. Warm nights and young bodies.

  Love and hope.

  Rattled, she tore herself away. Snatched up her robe and put it on. The man’s gaze followed her, the rest of him still immobilized. Crisply, she unlocked the chains holding him in place, along with those binding his ankles, and sat in a low chair nearby.

  “Kneel before me,” she commanded. She picked up a nearby nail file and flicked a glance to make sure he had obeyed. He had—but slowly. Already, keeping control of his will was draining her. The hypnotic compulsion had not been an easy skill to master and it hadn’t gotten any easier over the years. She hadn’t drunk enough of his blood for this kind of effort. And it didn’t help that dawn approached. Sunrise didn’t force her to sleep anymore, but it was her weakest time of day.

  She’d have to make sure her seductive assassin was well chained by then. For now it was good to press home to him that he could not resist her. Even though—extremely puzzling—it seemed he could.

  “Name, rank and serial number, love.”

  A flicker of amusement creased the skin around his eyes, despite the stakes, despite all she’d done to him thus far. Admiration for his indomitable spirit spun warm through her. While he resisted answering, and while she applied the careful pressure on his mind so he would believe he had to obey, she wondered where he’d lived, what sort of life he’d had. How he’d managed to survive and stay healthy, away from any protected settlement.

  “Kasar,” he finally gritted out.

  She raised an interested eyebrow. “Family name?”

  “Khan.”

  “Twice a king then. Interesting.”

  “Just an engineer.” His mouth twisted in rueful memory.

  “And how did you come here, Lapushka?”

  “I hiked. From Moscow.”

  “Why?”

  His mind was slipping away from her. Clever, clever. His thoughts reshuffled, finding literal ways to answer while he squirreled away the truth.

  “To find you.”

  She tossed aside the file, leaned forward and rubbed a thumb over his full lower lip, staring deep into his eyes. “What were you doing in such a small village?”

  His breath rose and fell. “Visiting.”

  “Who?”

  “No one. They were all dead or gone.”

  “I could break you.” She whispered it, then placed a soft kiss on that alluring mouth. “I could whip you until your flesh shreds and you will tell me anything I want to know.”

  His hands dove into her hair, holding her there while he kissed her back, hard and fervent. She allowed the movement, sinking into the pleasure of his mouth, the taste of man. He pulled back, so their lips were a breath apart.

  “You don’t scare me,” he murmured.

  “Only because you are a fool.”

  He chuckled. “Perhaps. But I’m the fool who will kill you.”

  “So certain. How do you plan to do it? With that little keriss of yours?” She leaned back, parting her thighs and drawing him with her, holding his gaze, adding compulsion. Soon she would need to feed. With deliberately languid sensuality, she draped her arms back behind her head, making herself look vulnerable to him. “Tell me about the knife. You may open my robe and touch me as you please, as long as you’re talking about the keriss.”

  His eyes flashed. Instead of reverently untying the sash of her robe as she expected, he fisted his hands in the sheer silk and ripped it off her. She gasped at the violence of the movement, which turned into a cry of intense need when his fingers speared into her spread pussy.

  “I found it on a business trip to Malaysia,” he told her, his hand pumping into her, hard thumb on her clit, while the other hand seized her breast, squeezing hard. “Stupid little junk shop. Dusty. Dark. I bought it on impulse, nothing more. Let me fuck you.”

  “No.” She bit down on it, trying to resist the incredible assault of his hands. She could stop him easily. He could never match her strength. But, for the moment, the sense of being taken over by him overwhelmed her with a dark, whirling reward. “Keep talking or I’ll make you stop.”

  “You want this as much as I do.” He worked another finger into her, opening her wide so her hips pumped. “Let me fuck you.”

  “Tell me about your first vampire kill and you can.” She kept her voice steady, but the orgasmic tension riding her nearly robbed her of thought. Keep on task.

  He pushed a third finger through her vulva, sliding his pinky into her anus, thumb still hard on her clit, dark eyes boring into her also. “I was lucky. I’d been following the nightriders, rumors, traces. Missing people and empty villages. One set on me at night. I’d run out of ammunition months before, but I’d taken the keriss when I left Moscow, sentiment, maybe.”

  In telling the story, he’d slowed his assault, his penetrating fingers stroking her higher, the hand on her breast pinching the nipple almost thoughtfully.

  “He was on me before I knew it. Impossibly strong. Drinking…he drank my blood. Though I’d long since figured out who you were, all of you, that feeling—” Kasar’s face hardened with resolve. His hands tightened on her with bruising force and Imogen cried out. “I am not prey.”

  “To us you are.” She showed him her fangs.

  “And while I fuck you, you’ll feed. I know.” He titled his head back, showing her his delicious, corded th
roat. “You want this as much as you want my cock, don’t you?”

  “Finish the story or it won’t happen.”

  “You lose yourselves while feeding—did you know that, my siren, my slaver?” He pushed into her harder, deeper, sending her spinning and she fought to keep focus. “Just like a woman when she orgasms. A little death. That’s when I used the keriss to cut his heart out. And while the blood—my blood—poured out of him, I cut his head off.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yes.” He pulled his hand out of her dripping sex and seized her hips, yanking her down so her splayed pussy was poised on the edge of the chair, his raging cock positioned at her entrance. “Let me fuck you now.”

  Dazed. Unsure how she’d lost control of this encounter, for surely she had, she nodded.

  With a feral growl, he plunged into her. Her body arched with the ecstasy of hot, human flesh inside her and she threw her head back in a scream of pleasure. Fully seated in her, he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her out of the chair, throwing her down on the fur before the fire and pinning her with his weight.

  He stretched her arms over her head, holding her down by the wrists. She let him, luxuriating in his size, enveloping her, pressing her down. He stared into her face.

  “You have such beautiful eyes.”

  And then he drew back and thrust into her with such force that she screamed again, the climax already rippling through her. He let go of her wrists and seized her thighs, pushing them back and widely splayed so he could pound into her, just as she’d promised he could do. She bucked and writhed under him, enjoying this, yes. Enjoying him. As he came with a hoarse shout of triumph, she wrapped her legs around his waist, climbing his body so she straddled his hips.

  Starving, she plunged her fangs into the throbbing vessel vulnerable in the parting of the muscles in his neck. His hot blood—so vital, so strong, the blood of kings—pumped into her with the rhythm of his cock.

  His arms clasped her to him, hard man flesh holding her while she fed at last, deeply and without thought.

  Kasar held her to him, the dark pain of her little mouth fastened to his neck. He felt overwhelmed by the rush of emotion. The satin of her skin under his hands, the silk cape of her hair, the wet clasp of her core, even the exquisite pain of her sharp fangs—all of it conspired to overcome him.

  She’d captured him, tormented and enslaved him. Likely killed his sister and the last of the line he’d sworn to protect. She was a monster, an abomination who fed on human life…and yet here he cuddled her close, wanting to protect her.

  His head swam and, as if sensing his dizziness, she stopped her drinking. Placing a hand on his throat to hold the wound closed, she flicked him a coy look and bit her wrist, smearing the blood over his neck, deadening the pain immediately, then offered it to him.

  He stared at the blood welling from her tawny flesh. Tempted and repelled.

  “Just a little,” she coaxed him. “It will restore you.”

  “I don’t want to become a mon—like you.”

  She smiled, but it was full of grief and sorrow. “I told you. We cannot make new vampires. The art has been lost. My blood only makes you stronger. Nothing more.”

  Tentative, he licked her little wrist, the taste of them intermingled swimming through him like the headiest of wines. And it did steady him, clearing his head and filling him with vitality. His cock swelled inside the tight clamp of her body, so he pushed up, watching her eyes blur with pleasure.

  She didn’t have a grip on his will at the moment and he reveled in the freedom of seeing the play of emotion in her face without fear. Her hips felt fragile under his hands as he lifted her and slid her down along his shaft, her long, slim legs wrapped around his waist in a languid clasp. The feeding had changed her, had made her relaxed, even cuddly.

  If one could call a predator cuddly.

  A wild part of him loved this about her, loved playing with the deadly fire she could be. If she tightened those deceptively elegant thighs, she could break his spine without a thought. With a whisper of will, she could freeze him into place. She couldn’t make him tell her everything though, couldn’t read his every thought. He might be only human, but he knew how to manage the tiger.

  Right now, she purred.

  He slid his hands up her narrow back, under the luxuriant silk of her hair, encouraging her to arch back so he could fasten his mouth on her pert nipples. They were hard against his lips, backed by the fullness of her breasts. Her gasping moan arrowed straight to his groin as he sucked harder, wanting to swallow her in. She writhed in pleasure, so he held her tight and bit down.

  She screamed, his siren, head thrown back in intense pleasure, her throat arched and long. Her pussy worked his shaft like a hand, rippling, slick and hot.

  Now would be the time to kill her.

  If he had his keriss, this would be the moment. This as much as when she fed from him, when the pleasures of the flesh swamped her, while his mouth drove her wild, he could plunge the knife between her ribs just there.

  Grief swamped him. Sorrow and wretchedness for all that had become of the world. His revenge felt forgotten and weak compared to the singular thing of beauty this woman embodied, monster or not. She was fire and life and sex.

  She would endure, of all the things that had not, she would.

  Suddenly desperate to taste her mouth, he drew her up and kissed her. Her sharp fang caught his lip and she fastened on him, eager now, riding him with wild abandon, while they kissed as if the world would never end.

  “What is your name?” he gasped.

  Her eyes flew open. They were only brown, in truth, not blazing tawny at all. Just a light brown, with golden flecks. She smiled and pushed him onto his back, rising up just enough so that he could kick his legs out straight. Then she sank her nails into his pecs, deep enough to sting, her hair draping over them and seated herself on him, a velvet clamp that made him shudder.

  Here was her supernatural strength. Light as a bird, and yet he couldn’t move with her pinning him down, working his cock with slow deliberation.

  Coming so many times in a row, he didn’t know how long this hard-on would last, but it might be excruciatingly protracted. She knew it too. It showed in the curve of her cruel smile as she rose on him and sheathed herself, over and over.

  “Are we having pillow talk now?” She scraped her nails into his skin and he gasped.

  He filled his hands with her breasts, returning the favor, her hard nipples thrusting into his palms. “If you like.”

  She picked up her pace and he thought it might be possible for him to come again after all. His balls drew up high, tight and painful.

  “I want a name too.” Her lovely mouth fell open in a series of sensuous pants. “A trade.”

  “I told you my name.” He had to grit out the words, against the near-agony of the pending climax.

  “Who were you visiting?”

  He threw his head back, staring blindly at the ceiling. Not now. He couldn’t think about her now. About the lost child. Should isn’t is. Tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes. He was a wrecked man, ravaged and broken.

  And then her mouth was on his, seeking and tender, sweet even. Her fingers brushed the wetness from his temples. He wound his hands in her glorious mane and held her to him, their tongues twining and the sense of her brushing his will, not compelling, but comforting.

  The climax fell out of him like an earthen dam breaking, a full crumbling of resistance. He poured himself into her and she received him, licking the tears from his cheeks.

  They lay like that for a while, with her draped over him, light as a house cat, her hair like a blanket of silk. After a time, she eased off him and licked her way down his body, cleaning him of their combined juices. Dazed he watched her pink tongue working over his finally flaccid cock.

  “Is it sustenance for you?”

  She settled against him, cheek on his chest and toyed with the line of hair dusting hi
s abs.

  “Blood. Semen. Pussy juice—yes, it all carries what we need. Blood is best, of course.”

  “But it’s not enough protein. How does that work?”

  She shrugged against him. “Magic.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Well…” He frowned at the curving ceiling. “How did you become a vampire? You were human once.”

  “Once.” Her fingers followed the trail of hair, tracing the lines of his muscles. “I don’t remember, really.”

  “Why not?”

  She sighed, then turned and folded her hands on his chest. She propped her chin on them to look at him. He stroked her hair out of her face. She leaned into the caress.

  “Do you remember your boyhood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember it as crisply as you did in your teens or twenties?”

  “Some things. Not as much.”

  “But not all things. They fade. They grow dim. You remember tonight more clearly, last week. Maybe a few things from your boyhood stand out—one or two vivid moments—but the rest are covered over, yes? Our memories fade over time, old ones discarded to record new ones.”

  “Yes, but you are…”

  “Not human?” Her full lips twisted in a wry grimace. “My brain started as human as yours. You are what—thirty?”

  “Thirty-five.”

  She nodded. “I was nineteen when I changed. In thirty years, you’ve forgotten many things, now multiply those by ten, and double it, double it again. I have failed to remember many, many things.”

  “I would think becoming a vampire would be memorable.”

  She wrapped a curl of chest hair around her finger and tugged, making him wince. “This is memorable. And my name is Imogen. Which I think you knew.”

  “British? If my math is right, you’re older than Shakespeare.”

  “Clever Lapushka. Yes, the playwright changed it from Innogen—Latin, yes?—I liked his version better.”

  “So you’re an innocent Italian girl at heart.”

  “No. She died a long time ago.” She shrugged, but her eyes darkened. “She was a boring little twit anyway.”