by Stone, Ciana
Perhaps you are demented by the standards of this world. I will not fall into the trap of presuming that I understand humanity even after all the years I have walked among them. They are and ever will be a species unlike my own.
I have known men and women considered mad, insane by their human counterparts, and you could well count in this number, but until I take you, I will not know for certain all that is within you. Your thoughts are known to me as words on a page, but the cause of your emotions from one moment to another is as a fogged window.
It's a curious pleasure, contemplating the idea of delaying the moment when I take you, and know all there is to know of your body and mind. Actually, this entire moment is an odd pleasure. I sit here, watching you hurry about, making your preparations to capture yet another of my kind and bend them to the will of those you call master.
I sense the longing inside you. The need to know, the questions you yearn to ask. Alongside longing, there exists conflict, deep and intense. It tears at the fabric of your soul. There is a kernel inside you that rebels at the role you play. I find a certain amusement in the dichotomy of your nature, the need to know warring with the need to fulfill your duty. Which, I wonder, will win out in the end? Will you succumb to the dictates of the master who drives you and continue blindly in your quest, or will you give in to the questions that haunt you and open your mind to possibility beyond what you have been taught to accept as truth?
And if you ask, will I give you truth or will I perpetuate the myth that grows about me and the rumors that abound about you? That you truly are insane, a demented woman, infatuated and possessed with the notion of me, hiding from her own sanity in order to preserve her illusions. Hiding from her own true nature.
You cast a glance at me and I sense your thoughts. You wonder if I will speak true or if this is merely a ruse to entertain myself until I take you and end your chance to know.
To know. Your thirst for the truth is as vast as my thirst for you, for that which nourishes me. Your thirst drives you as relentlessly as does my own. It gives you courage and makes you reckless and it isolates you as effectively as my own.
"If you value your life you will not seek me again.” I projected a whisper of my power along with my words as we stood there, locked eye to eye in those first moments.
"I'm not going to hurt you. For now," you replied through growing fear, for your mind accepted my suggestion readily enough. "First, I want to understand."
Your words stunned me. You answered as if you wore the shoes of the predator. How curious. Why did I not know your answer before you spoke it?
"What shall I make clear to you before I take you?” I was thrown off guard enough to resort to tried and true tactics; increase the fear, make sure the victim understands they are the prey and their lives are mine.
"Where you fit in the pattern," you said, giving me yet another surprise.
"The pattern." Even as the words slid across my lips, I saw it in your mind.
"Yes, the pattern. There's a pattern, a rhythm to everything. We're all part of it. If you're here then you must be part of the pattern. But what? Are you and your kind designed to be our natural predator and if so does that make you a step up the evolutionary ladder, superior to mankind? And if you are superior, then why aren't you using that superiority to help prevent humans from destroying the world that is home to us all?"
What an interesting woman you are and how your mind delights me. You refuse your fear; shove it back from you like an unwanted suitor, impatient that it interferes with what you want.
And what you want most is me. You are not ready to admit it, but I know it for the truth. That gives me pause.
"Either speak or leave, I have work to do and the night is wasting.” Your voice is low yet vibrant with excitement and dread.
Because I am a vain and arrogant being, derived from centuries of habit, I stare into your eyes sending clouds of doubt into your mind.
"Please.” You are as irritated as afraid which pleases me for some inexplicable reason, resorting to the annoying human tendency to stretch that one syllable word into two so that it becomes an insult.
The hunger pulls at me, spiking like a solar flare at the soft insult. Before your mind can register the images your eyes send, I am on my feet, towering above you. You are taken aback, your heart rate accelerates. Will I attack? Am I brave enough not to?
Brave enough? That you should think a thing is unprecedented, and enough to cool the fire that burns within me. Like the grand showman you think me to be, I rip the dark cloak and clothing aside, baring the upper half of my body.
Fear recedes from your mind as your eyes travel up the length of me, taking in the smooth unblemished skin. Wonder and, yes, longing wash away the last of the fear leaving me powerless over you by fact of what I am, but more in control than ever because of what I am to you. Here is your dream, about to become real. The truth is so close. You hunger so for it, regardless of the fact that it is an unwanted hunger.
Your breath catches in your throat as you find yourself moving to me, your body pressing against mind, your head tilted back so that your eyes remain my prisoner. Hunger rumbles through me and you are so inviting. I could take you now. I want to take you; in all the ways a man can take a woman, in all the ways I can take a woman.
But no, this experience should not be rushed. It means too much to you. I suspect it means too much to me. I will wait, but I will give you a hint of what can be. Your lips are pliant and willing beneath mine and you do not hesitate to move your hand up and tangle them in my long hair, pulling my mouth more firmly against yours.
Your taste is sweet, of coffee beans and chocolate, of the sweet smoke of the glass pipe you favor and of something unique to you. Your breasts are warm and firm against the coolness of my skin, your hand strong on my bare shoulder. I smell you, your desire. I feel the heat within you growing hotter. It fuels the need inside me and sparks a new hunger, one I have not felt in so long that it has been all but forgotten.
It is a need that is forbidden to me. It is the need every male of every species feels when he finds a female suited to him. But you are not of my species and nothing can come from such a union. Yet the need persists enough to unsettle me. With regret I end the kiss, projecting a beautiful lie to ease the rejection you feel.
Your eyes narrow slightly and lock with mine. You don't believe me. How is that possible? Humans cannot resist me—or any of my kind.
“No, I could not resist you,” she whispered.
“Not, I you.” The memory of their bonding flooded their minds
She had set out to kill Constantine that night. Perhaps she would have, had not Bram, the leader of the Alliance and the man who raised her, not sent Alliance warriors to kill her.
Resa would have died had Constantine not fought by her side, had he not whisked her to safety when she was wounded.
She’d wakened in his stronghold and for the first time, they allowed an uneasy truce to keep them from each other’s throat. Constantine told her the truth of his kind. Vampyres, they were not. They were people of V’Kar, exiled on earth.
Moreover, she was not the product of a union between an earthling witch and a vampire. She was sired by a V’Kar and miraculously, her genetic code carried far more of the V’Kar chromosomes than human, something unprecedented.
And something that made her valuable to the V’Kar since it had been more than a millennia since their kind had been able to reproduce.
It was a hard realization for her. Constantine had realized that, and had realized that he had to come to a decision on what to do with her. He’d forced sleep upon her.
“But oh, upon awakening,” she said with a soft chuckle.
Constantine’s arms tightened around her and they allowed themselves to fall into the memory.
Resa tossed and turned, coming out of sleep feeling angry and out of sorts. In the kind of mood that could only be dispelled by one of two things. Battle or sex.
; As if in answer to her thought, the door opened. Constantine stepped inside, closing and locking the door behind him. Something in the way he moved, the tension in his body and hard glint in his eyes made the hair on the back of her neck stand up and her nipples tighten.
He stalked over to the bed, stripping off his silk jacket and tossing it carelessly to the floor. “You should be sleeping.”
“I’m not sleepy,” she replied as casually as possible considering the tension pouring off him in waves and the hot need that burned inside her.
His brow furrowed and suddenly it dawned on her. He’s used his ability to make her sleep. “Oh, I get it. I shouldn’t have been able to overcome your sleep suggestion? Sorry, I guess the Vamp—oops, D’Harahn powers aren’t 100% on me.”
His jaw tightened at the taunt but smiled coldly. “We have unfinished business, Dhampir.”
Annoyance flared at the scorn he placed in the word. “Careful, Vampyre. As your own people said, we’re more alike than not.”
“You enjoy inciting anger, don’t you, huntress?” He reached out and grabbed her by the hair, hauling her to her knees on the bed.
She paid no mind to the sheets sliding down her body, revealing her nudity. Her rage broke through the surface, fueling her with energy. “Hands off!” She grabbed his wrist, digging her fingertips into the vulnerable pressure points hard enough to break his grip, and rolling away to come to a standing position on the opposite side of the bed as he made another grab for her.
“As I told you, there’s a price for knowledge,” he said in a voice that was a heady mixture of seduction and danger.
“And as I recall, I saved your hide, so I’d say I’m paid in full. So why don’t we get back to where you left off in your story before we were interrupted.”
He started around the bed toward her, his steps smooth and sure, like a great cat on the prowl, stalking its prey. “I think not. First you submit, and then you learn the truths you seek.”
Resa despised the burst of hunger his words precipitated inside her. Hated the way she longed to give in to him, submit to whatever he wanted from her. She did not submit. To anyone. No matter how much she might want it. It just wasn’t in her nature.
“Sorry, baby,” she crooned in a seductive tone, watching him move around the corner of the bed. “Submission isn’t my style.”
“You lie,” he said with a knowing smile. “You long for it, Resa. Even now, your body burns for it. See how your nipples pucker with anticipation and your sex weeps?”
She snorted and dove across the bed at he suddenly lunged at her. “Like I said, submission isn’t my style.”
Constantine growled. Actually growled as she backed away from the bed. He leapt across it as easily as a child playing hopscotch, landing lightly on his feet in front of her. “Then perhaps it is time you were taught a new style.”
She laughed in his face, thrilling to the danger that shimmered around him. “You think you’re man enough? Then bring it on.”
One quick hiss was all the warning she received before he attacked, the back of his hand impacting the side of her face hard enough to send her reeling sideways.
She recovered faster than he anticipated, based on the surprised look in his eyes when she came at him, pivoting into a kick that caught him dead center of his chest.
It had less effect that she would have wanted, but it did force him to take a step back. He grinned and for a moment, she felt a shimmer of fear. Suddenly his eyeteeth were elongated, like the canines of a great wolf, and his eyes shown with an unearthly red hue as if awash with diluted blood.
“Nice try,” she panted out the words between blows. “But I can do that, too.”
She grinned at him, knowing he’d see the same sharp teeth and red eyes he’d tried to intimidate her with.
He grinned and came at her and she laughed in the delight of battle, a wild sound that had nothing to do with humor and everything to do with passion and hunger, kinetic energy that had to be released or destroy her.
Here was the beast she knew, one like all the others she’d tracked and battled. Now she was in her element. Furniture was knocked over and broken, window shattered and priceless objects d’art obliterated. Around the room they fought, their breath coming hard and fast, sweat making her body slick and his clothing cling to him.
Time went unnoticed. All that existed for her was the fight. She’d never met an opponent so strong or so skilled. Most of her attacks were out maneuvered, her blows absorbed. Still she pressed, forcing him to defend against her unending assault.
On and on they battled until finally he slammed her against a wall, pinning her hands over her head, his legs securely between hers so that his erection ground against her wet sex through the damp fabric of his slacks.
“You can’t win,” he breathed in her face.
“Neither can you,” she gasped and wound her legs around him, beating at the backs of his knees with her heels to try and make him fall.
“I already have,” he whispered and lowered his mouth to hers, pressing that hard mass of maleness against her sex, and shattering what little control was left to her.
With a groan deep in her throat, she worked her hand between their bodies and into his pants to fist him.
Constantine continued his assault on her mouth, but released her hands to unfasten his pants. They pooled around his ankles, leaving him bare and hot against her sex.
His chest pressed against her pinning her more firmly to the wall. Resa knew what was coming and welcomed it. The fight had stirred her blood to damn near boiling point.
Constantine’s hand moved down to pry her hand away from his erection. Winding both hands with hers, he spread her arms out wide, holding them locked against the wall.
Resa’s legs tightened around his waist, her sex grinding against the length of that glorious hard shaft pressing against her.
His mouth closed on hers again in a kiss that was as savage as it was passionate.
“In me,” she moaned against his mouth. “Get in me.”
He freed one hand to guide himself to her wet opening. One hard push and he was fully seated inside her. Resa gasped at the size of him but even that moment of pain couldn’t stop her from rocking her pelvis against him.
Constantine growled and pounded against her, in and out, fast and hard, reclaiming his grip on her hand to keep her pinned against the wall. Resa burned for all he could give and that burn only got hotter and more intense. And with the increasing heat came more speed.
The groan that rumbled up from deep in his chest had her banging her head back against the wall, her hands tensing into claws that longed to rake the length of his back.
“Oh fuck,” she panted as the first wave began to crest. “Oh!”
His voice was like sandpaper, hot and raspy. “Say it. Say my name. Tell me how much you want me.”
“I—want—it!” As much as she longed to comply, she could not bring herself to cry his name. It was more surrender than she could muster. “Oh, now. Now, now, now!
A cry of protest was ripped from her when he suddenly stopped and his grip on her released. “Noooo!”
He gave her smile sexy enough to spike her blood pressure and pinned her hard against the wall again. She tilted her pelvis against him, the rocking motion providing an erotic scrap of the thick hair at the base of his shaft against her clit.
She wound her arms around his neck, fisting his hair to pull him to her. The moment their lips met, he curled his spine, the motion hilting her higher against the wall so that his pelvis was firmly beneath her.
She moaned into his mouth as he rammed fully inside her. His muscular chest crushed against hers, plastering her against the wall in near breath stopping pressure, signaling that he had her just where he wanted her. That was fine with her.
Resa wrapped her legs more firmly around his waist and rode him, meeting his thrusts eagerly. Her breath came shallow and quick as he pumped inside her. Every nerve in her body was tin
gling and her sex was about to burst into flames at the heat building inside her. The angle of entry and his generously endowed manhood had her stretched to the limit.
There was no way for her to stem her groans or stop the vibration in her belly from radiating out to take control of her body.
“Oh god… oh god… don’t…. stop.”
Her gasped plea seemed to have the same effect a red flag as on a bull because he pounded so hard that her body slapped the wall in a rapid rhythm.
“Yes. Yes, yes, yes!” She screamed and reared her head back, pulling his head against her.
When she felt his mouth fasten on her neck, licking then sucking, she moaned, not caring what came next. Let him leave a hickey as dark as night for all she cared. Release was so close, orgasm pressing in ever nearer, making her oblivious to all but the sublime sensation.
Constantine growled, grabbed her ass in both hands, lifting and spreading her more, his stance widening to allow him to ram harder and faster inside her.
“Resa,” he whispered against her skin a moment before she felt a stab of pain in her neck. For a moment, she wondered if he was going to leave a permanent bruise. Then the pain vanished, replaced with the most sublime pleasure she’d ever known that spread through her body like a drug.
“Yes. Constantine, yes.” There was no more doubt, no question. She was his, being carried on a wave of pleasure, heedless to all else but the sensations he evoked. “More, more.”
Her gasps provoked him to push deeper and harder and she took it, welcomed it, exulted in it as it carried her ever closer to that precipice. Then she fell, into that chasm where nothing else mattered, where everything else faded and exquisite pleasure reigned.
His body twitched and tightened. Sweat slicked skin met in slaps, rapid and hard, her body slamming into the wall in a quick cadence. Breath came in harsh gasps. Resa’s fingers tightened into claws in his long hair as his fingers dug into the flesh of her ass.