“I couldn’t get to her in time.” Hannah sobbed. “Little Edith was right next to the cellar door, but they got to her before I could open it and let her in.”
Her body convulsed and hysterical sobs tore from her chest. They cut into him down to his very soul.
“She was only two years old. I should’ve done something,” she wailed. “I should’ve died with them, but I was a coward and I hid.” She choked on her tears and began coughing.
Nicholas slid his seat as far back as it would go and pulled her onto his lap. Cradling her to his chest, he stroked her silky hair that hung in a thick curtain down her back. He recalled the body of the toddler that had lain next to the door of the cellar of the Nebraska homestead, and his chest tightened. His heart broke for Hannah.
“No, Hannah,” he said softly in her ear. “You were a child, and your family would have been so happy to know that you lived.”
“No.” She shook her head.
Her crying had lost some of its desperation, but tears streamed steadily down her cheeks and fell as salty rain on the front of his t-shirt. Her scent filled his head, her spicy, vampiric aroma mixing with the sharp saltiness of her tears. Her honeyed, feminine fragrance captured his attention. He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead before tracing a fingertip down her temple and allowing it to trail along the soft curve of her jaw. She tipped her chin, her wide, wet eyes glistening.
“It’ll be okay, honey,” he whispered.
Time hung suspended as he searched her gaze in the bright moonlight.
* * * *
Hannah found herself lost within the depths of his eyes. The terrifying dream faded into the background. His spicy scent made her head swim. He descended, slowly, until his breath crossed her lips in a feathery caress. She remained motionless, caught within his spell.
A siren wailed behind the SUV, followed by the flash of red and blue lights.
Hannah all but jumped out of her skin, and in the blink of an eye she was placed back in the passenger seat. Feeling a bit disoriented, she noticed for the first time that they were sitting in the median of the interstate.
A stern-looking state trooper appeared at the driver’s side window and tapped on the glass with the butt end of a flashlight.
Nicholas rolled down the window. “Good evening, officer.”
“Is there a reason you’re parked in the median?” the trooper asked.
“I won’t lie, I dozed off,” Nicholas lied. “I apologize, but I’m definitely wide awake now.”
The trooper leaned closer and shone the flashlight into the interior of the SUV. “Have you been drinking this evening, sir?”
“No.”
The trooper eyed Hannah. She was sure he could see she’d been crying. She gave him a smile and a nod.
“You okay, ma’am?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “I got some bad news earlier, but I’m fine now.”
The trooper frowned and asked for Nicholas’s driver’s license and proof of insurance.
Luckily, the rest of the traffic stop was uneventful and Nicholas got off with a warning.
An uncomfortable silence hung between them the rest of the trip to Montana. Hannah forced her thoughts to the hunt ahead, her excitement muted by the uncertainty about the vampire next to her. She couldn’t dwell on the strength she’d been able to draw from Nicholas, nor the way he’d swept away all fear from her heart. She couldn’t allow the idea that for those few moments in his arms, she’d felt…whole.
* * * *
Nicholas led the way up the slope of the mountain to a cabin a fellow Contact owned. Hannah’s gaze continually strayed to the way his backside looked beneath his snug jeans. Her mind drifted to their near kiss in the SUV. She closed her eyes in frustration and shook her head.
“Oh, good Lord,” she muttered.
“What was that?” Nicholas asked, glancing at her over his shoulder. His movements seemed effortless despite the thin air testing her lungs.
Shrugging, she stepped on a loose rock. It rolled beneath her foot, and her ankle twisted at an odd angle with a loud pop. Sharp pain shot through the joint as she staggered, falling to her hands and knees. Nicholas stepped to her side and put his hand on her back.
“Are you okay?” he asked. He guided her into a seated position.
“It’s just a sprain,” she said, her voice coming out sharper than she had intended.
He helped her remove her backpack.
She clenched her teeth against the throbbing pain. “This is going to set us back.”
“Not by much,” he said. “You’ll heal quickly.”
He smiled reassuringly, and she grimaced in return. He took a seat next to her and stared out across the rough terrain. The throbbing was already subsiding, though the swelling remained. Thankfully, vampires were a tough species. Full-bloods could heal from minor wounds within minutes, but it would take her about an hour.
“I love the mountains,” Nicholas said. He removed his backpack and inhaled deeply. Firs, aspens, and blue spruce dotted the rocky landscape.
Hannah felt nothing but aggravation over her clumsiness. She didn’t like speed bumps in her hunts, especially those of her own making. She dug into her backpack and pulled out a packet of beef jerky. She tore into it and shoved a piece into her mouth, chewing hard on the dehydrated beef. She washed it down with a swig from her canteen.
“It is pretty country,” she said, not really in a sightseeing mood.
“Look.” Following Nicholas’s pointing finger, she saw a herd of elk making their way down the slope some distance away. The bull paused and looked in their direction. After snorting, he hurried his herd on faster.
“Yum, we can have steak tonight,” Hannah said.
Nicholas ignored the bait and simply smiled. He had the ability to roll with the punches, and she both admired and resented him for it.
Except for a few chaste kisses while she was human, Hannah hadn’t had much experience with men. She reasoned her virginal body was simply reacting to a particularly virile member of her species. She was well over a century old, and that meant she had a lot of pent-up sexual energy. Plus, her human side would naturally react to the vampiric attraction their kind used to draw in their human prey.
Putting her odd attraction for Nicholas in perspective made her feel better.
Far off in the distance she heard the howl of a coyote. A long, lonesome call that was soon answered by another. A pack was making its way down the mountain slope, perhaps hunting the elk they’d just seen. The idea made her even antsier to get back to her own hunt. She stood and tested her still aching ankle. It would hold.
“Let’s go,” she said.
“Are you sure?” Nicholas asked. “We have plenty of time before nightfall.”
She scowled. “Let’s go,” she repeated.
Two hours later they approached the cabin. Staring at the ground and lost in thought, she didn’t see Nicholas stop and plowed straight into his back. He turned quickly and grabbed her shoulders as her backpack threw her off balance.
Arms flailing, she grabbed for the first thing she could and her hands found the tight ass she’d tried to ignore all afternoon. His dark eyes sparkled, and lines creased their corners as he smiled down at her. Hannah’s face flamed, and she released her grip.
* * * *
“Easy now.” Nicholas chuckled before he brushed away a silky strand of golden hair that had escaped her tight ponytail. He brought his fingers up to caress the soft, creamy skin of her cheek. Her gold-flecked eyes darkened, and her body shivered under his touch. She swayed toward him.
Unbidden thoughts rushed into his mind as the irresistible draw for her overtook him. His brother had helped murder her family. Nicholas had been given the opportunity to kill him, but had let him go, and his decision had cost Hannah dearly. He ground his teeth as lust and guilt warred within him.
She flicked out her pink tongue to moisten her top lip and shifted her gaze to his mouth. Nicholas curve
d his hand into her hair and pulled her roughly toward him. He was a bastard.
Hannah’s gasp was cut short as his mouth crushed hers. He wasn’t sure how she’d respond—figuring she’d either pull away or punch him in the jaw. He almost hoped that was the case. He had no idea she’d meet him with such hunger. Her hands came up. She laced her fingers in his hair and pulled him down to her.
Desperate to get closer, he unhooked her encumbering backpack, and she let it drop to the ground with a thud.
He hadn’t had feelings like this since his wife Arena was murdered long ago.
Hannah quickly dispensed with his backpack as well. His mind swam with her fragrance, a vampiric spice mixed with her own sweet, female scent. Underneath it lay the heady odor of her half-human existence. She was pliant and giving in his embrace.
His canines lengthened in response to his sexual arousal. He wanted her. He had to have her.
* * * *
Hannah was shocked by her immediate response to Nicholas’s kiss. Her head spun as his tongue danced, challenged, and tangled with hers.
He reached down and cupped her bottom, lifting her completely off the ground. She wrapped her legs around his waist and rubbed against his cock, which strained against the denim of his jeans. She wanted him, regardless of how irrational it might be. She hated him, yet something inside taunted her. Wait. Did she really hate him?
They made it into the cabin a few yards away, and Nicholas gently placed her on the bed. Lust drunk, she clutched the front of his t-shirt and pulled him down on top of her. Running her hand under the black fabric, she thrilled at the sensation of his smooth, hot skin and the sprinkling of coarse hair across his chest. Her body caught fire, and she arched into him.
He pulled away. A small cry of protest escaped her throat.
After removing his t-shirt, he pitched it against a far wall and rejoined her. She devoured him with her eyes as he pulled at her shirt. She struggled to free herself from it. His mouth covered one of her nipples straining through the cotton of her bra. She laced her fingers through his thick hair and cried out in pleasure as his teeth nipped and teased the bud.
He moved his attention to the other nipple and slid his hands underneath her, unhooking the clasp of her bra. When his mouth closed over her bare skin, she feared she might come apart. He trailed light, teasing fingers down her abdomen, past the snap of her jeans, and found the juncture of her thighs. Nicholas stroked her sex through the rough denim, and she was sure she’d die from the torment.
“Please, Nicholas.” Heat coiled from where his hand massaged her, pooling deep in her core. She had never climaxed with a man, only by her own hand, and the sensations she was experiencing were beyond any of her own creation.
He groaned and then undid her jeans, sliding the zipper down in a painfully slow fashion. Slipping a hand inside, he caressed her through her cotton panties. She writhed and twisted, and he pushed a finger around the fabric and into her pussy. She moaned and arched into him. When he teased her clit, she let out a hoarse cry.
She needed this more than she needed air to survive. Waves of pleasure washed through her. He rained hot, moist kisses across her abdomen before tugging her jeans down her hips. After kicking off her boots, she pushed them and her panties away.
Nicholas growled as his burning gaze roved over her naked flesh. When he buried his face between her thighs, shock flashed through her, and she started to pull away, but when he thrust his tongue into her pussy, she screamed his name instead. She never imagined anything so amazing. The rhythmic thrusts of his tongue caused waves of delight to build higher and higher inside of her. She moved in time with it against his mouth, and in an explosion of pleasure, she cried out his name.
* * * *
Nicholas’s body throbbed, ached, and he ground his teeth in an effort to keep his desire in check. Hannah’s soft, feminine fragrance stole his breath from his lungs. Her pussy held the same honeyed taste as her scent. It played over his tongue and, for the first time in over two hundred years, he felt almost human.
She was so beautiful, and she deserved someone better than him. She deserved someone who didn’t harbor terrible secrets.
He had made the decision to pleasure her to orgasm and leave it at that. Until she shifted beneath him and reached down.
“I need you inside me, Nicholas,” she pleaded, fumbling with the zipper of his jeans.
Nicholas let out a harsh breath. “Hannah, have you ever been with a man before?”
He was sure he already knew the answer to his question. He’d kept such close tabs on her through the years there was little he didn’t know.
She hesitated. “No.”
“You’re so beautiful.” He stared into the hazel depths of her eyes and stroked the hair from her forehead. Something welled within him and twisted around his heart. He considered the sensation for a moment and decided it was guilt for what he was about to do.
It couldn’t be anything more but simple guilt.
She massaged him through the fly of his jeans while nibbling his sensitive earlobe.
“I want you inside me, Nicholas,” Hannah whispered again. Her hot, moist breath teased him, but it was the eager explorations of her hand that broke him.
He reached between them and undid his jeans. She took his length in her hand and stroked it. In only a moment, he was rid of his boots and jeans.
* * * *
A voice in the back of Hannah’s mind asked if she truly wanted to give this man her body. Something tightened inside her chest as he positioned himself between her thighs. Was it fear?
He slid his tip within her, and the question died away. Slowly, he pushed deeper, and her ragged breaths turned into quick gasps. Her body stretched to accommodate him. When he’d filled her completely, he circled his hips, bringing desperate cries from her lips. She raked her nails down his back and instinctively moved with him, feeling the waves of pleasure building once more. He began slow, teasing thrusts that drove her to madness.
“More,” she pleaded.
With a groan, he brought his hips back before thrusting hard. She cried out as the first shockwave of her orgasm hit her. His rhythm became frantic, driving her harder into those incredible crests of pleasure.
At last he threw his head back and let out a savage cry of release.
Chapter 3
Nicholas rolled to one side on the double bed. It groaned under their weight as she shifted and lay her head on his chest. The tempo of his heartbeat slowed, and she laced her fingers with his. She gave him a small smile. He returned it with a grin of his own.
He stroked her hair. She drifted in a world she hadn’t known before. She felt so complete and at peace. There was no past or future, only now, with a man who confused her in ways she hadn’t thought possible.
She reached inside herself for the old anger she had for him, but only found the man who had saved her from the Dissenter attack when she was ten. The same vampire who’d come to her aid when she had lain in agony, dying from her crushing injuries, years later. She remembered tears shining in his eyes as he placed a soft kiss on her forehead before his teeth found her jugular.
Her bottom lip stung. She sucked it between her teeth. “You bit me.”
He frowned and looked at her slightly swollen lip, before she wiped away a drop of blood.
“I’m so sorry, Hannah,” he said.
Nicholas rolled her onto her back and placed a gentle kiss on the injury, tracing the tip of his tongue over the small wound. She sighed.
It happened in the space of an inhalation, an uncontrollable, instinctive vampiric reflex. Hannah brought her gaze to his and watched as the onyx depths of his eyes flooded to a blackened red. She looked down to his mouth hovering inches from hers, and her breath caught in her throat.
Nicholas pulled his lips tight over the extended canines that gleamed deadly white. Realization struck. She was still half-human; he had the taste of human blood on his tongue.
He opened his mo
uth wide, and a horrible snarl tore from his throat. A blink of an eye later, he shoved himself off the bed and stood with his fingers contorted at his sides like rigid claws. His chest heaved beneath his labored breathing as he battled for control over his most basic instinct.
Adrenaline surged into her body as her vampiric side gained control. She sprang into a crouch and hissed, baring her own sharp canines. She flattened down, a cornered beast ready to attack. Nicholas turned and fled through the open cabin door.
Hannah shook so hard she thought she’d fall apart. Hot tears poured down her cheeks, washing over her neck and chest. She blinked hard, willing them away, hating showing weakness, but they kept coming.
Nicholas could have easily overpowered her and ripped her throat open. Nicholas, the man to whom she’d just handed her virginity. The self-loathing inside her mixed with something else, a feeling that squeezed her heart, causing her to panic.
She quickly redressed, grabbed her backpack, and pulled out the black-and-white photo of the Dissenter she was hunting. She rubbed away the moisture that blurred her vision. She had to get her mind on the job she was there to do.
A cold gust of wind blew through the open door, carrying with it the mournful howl of a canine somewhere out in the forest. The sound barely registered as she lit an oil lamp and studied the boy in the photo. He was in his late teens, with thick black hair and dark, piercing eyes. He looked so, so familiar, and she stared harder.
If he had filled out and had a straighter nose…
A frown tugged at the corners of her mouth. Her stomach lurched.
“No,” she said with a gasp.
There was no denying it. She balled up the photo and threw it to the floor. Their features were too similar to be merely a coincidence. Why hadn’t she noticed it before? Her world spun out of control. Was he Nicholas’s brother?
A rustling noise came from the front door. She stiffened, not ready to confront Nicholas.
She wouldn’t have to.
A tall, lithesome, female vampire stood in the open doorway. She had cropped, chestnut hair and large, smoky blue eyes.
Order of Terminus Page 16