As his hands dragged possessively down her body to rest on her hips, his mouth came to the center of her torment. He breathed hotly against her. His tongue flicked over the sensitive nub once, twice, a third time. Grabbing her by the backs of the knees, he forced her open wide. His kisses drew to the fold that joined her inner thigh to her pussy. Smelling the sweet, aroused perfume of her blood, Tyr couldn’t resist. He bit into her flesh.
Jaden bucked in delight. His teeth anchored into her and she felt the deepened suck of his kiss as he truly tasted her. His fingers found the wet folds of her sex.
Tyr tasted her. Unlatching his mouth, he drew his head away in ecstasy, rolling it back on his shoulders. Blood trickled from the wound, staining his lips crimson. It swirled with the dangerous passion in his eyes.
“Now you,” he urged. His piercingly erotic gaze filled with lines of red. The low accent of his Nordic speech became thicker, as he urged, “Taste me.”
Tyr came up next to her. He drew his fingernail over the side of his neck, cutting into his flesh without flinching. Blood trickled from the wound, flowing like little rivers his shoulder. He tensed, waiting for her to obey.
Leaning over, he brought the wound to Jaden’s mouth. “Taste my passion for you, let it flow inside of you.”
Jaden shivered in ecstasy, the prudent voice in the back of her mind unable to remind her of how wrong it was to be with a vampire. She licked the opening of his self-inflicted cut, kissing deeply as she drank from his flesh. Tyr groaned. His blood had the power to heal, the power to enhance, the power to make her lose all control.
“Yes,” he whispered, the word low and brutal, as if he was pushed beyond the threshold of his pleasure. “That’s it. Take me within you.”
With a quick flex of his hips Tyr pushed into her waiting body. Jaden made small noises in the back of her throat as he filled her completely. His blood trailed from her mouth, onto her chest to stain her smooth skin. Tyr reveled in her acceptance, pausing to feel her sex convulse around him, adjusting to his size. When he didn’t readily move inside her, she thrust up against him.
Tyr obeyed the silent demands of her body. He rocked against her, riding her with deep thrusts. In the insanity that surrounded them one thing became clear, this is why they had met—to be together, to come together, to share, to feel something so much richer than agony and death.
Jaden moaned. He was just as vocal in his passion, pushing faster, deeper, striking at her core with supernatural speed. She felt as if she were on fire. Nothing mattered but the vampire before her. Her blood swam with the sensation of him. His taste was in her mouth. She couldn’t resist another taste of him. She kissed him deeply, nicking her lips on his fangs.
They couldn’t reason beyond the beatings of their hearts, the need of their fevered flesh. Jaden suddenly tensed, shivers racking her body in violent completion. Tyr answered the call of her quivering body. He too came, releasing his seed within her.
When the final tremors of passion died, Tyr fell against her sweaty body. Jaden’s breath gasped loudly under him, her breathless recovery bringing him pleasure. For the briefest of moments, they were completely free and neither of them felt quite as alone.
* * *
Jaden sighed in her sleep as she drifted in peaceful dreams. Her limbs were heavy and calm. She felt a breeze moving tantalizingly over her skin and the strange, uneven texture of grass beneath it. The warmth of the sun shone brightly on her face, kissing her warmed flesh. In the distance a bird sang a cheerful summer song.
A cheerful song, she thought skeptically. A deep frown marred her brow. A bird?
Her eyes popped open. Jaden sat up from her grassy bed in trepidation. Before her was a land blanketed with rolling grasses and swaying weeds. Beneath her was the cushioned bed of a field. The perfumed scent of wildflowers wafted on the temperate wind, their color dotting the ground all around her. It was daytime. The sun was bright—too bright for an old vampire to venture into—and she was alone.
Darting to her feet, Jaden spun in circles. A forest stood nearby, no sign of fences or roads or people. In the distance, she thought she heard the hooves of horses, but the sound was so faint she couldn’t be sure. Tyr was nowhere to be found. Had he let her go? Did he decide she was innocent and that was that? Did he abandon her in the middle of Norway without a word?
Anger at being discarded like a cheap whore bubbled inside her. Her fists balled in outrage until she realized that something wasn’t quite right. She wasn’t in the mountains and…what the devil was she wearing?
Looking down in amazement, she saw a long, heavy gown of dark blue. Beneath the gown was an undertunic of cream, tightly fitted to her frame. Tiny buttons decorated the length of the tight, long sleeves. The skirts constricted her legs as she tried to move beneath the unfamiliar weight of the cumbersome dress. The dark blue overtunic gown hung open at the sleeves, arcing like a giant tank top beneath her armpit to her hips. Gold embroidery laid thick over the square neckline and hems and a gold cord draped around her fitted waist, swinging as she moved to touch just below the knee.
Looking around, she felt a fluttering at her neck. Thinking it to be a bug, she gasped and jumped. She frantically swatted the creature away. Instead of smashing an insect, she managed to tear a wimple and veil from over her head. They fluttered to the ground, discarded. Taking a deep breath, she jumped again as the overly long length of her hair blew into her vision. The ends reached a good distance past her waist.
“Uh,” she said, trying to clear the long locks from her mouth and eyes. Finally managing to tame the wild tresses back, she held them to the nape of her neck in a fierce grip. She instantly looked around for a knife so she could cut it off. “Tyr!”
“Yea, m’lady.”
Jaden spun around to face Tyr. He bowed gallantly. He wore a black turtle neck and his matching pants.
“Don’t you like the open field? Very medieval, is it not?” he asked.
Jaden stared at him in the sunlight. The rays hit upon his face, making his pale skin glow with life. His hair radiated as if on fire. The daylight gave texture to his lips, red from within by the help of her blood. When he smiled, she saw that his fangs were not as sharp.
Jaden swallowed, remembering all too well how he felt next to her. Her breasts felt swollen. She wanted to kiss him, to hold him, make love to him again in the damned field. But he was an enemy and now the fevered need of their bodies was tempered back to a reasonable pitch, it was time they faced what they must.
“It’s not,” she belatedly disagreed, doing her best to ignore his playful mood. “It looks like any other field. And how come you get to wear that and I am stuck in this? And why aren’t you dead from the sunlight?”
Tyr cleared his throat, his eyes smiling at her. His gaze moved over her form. “My apologies,” he shrugged, none too apologetic. “It’s my mind and I tend to put things as I want them. You did say you wished to see this time. That dress is part of it.”
“I meant the battles, Tyr, not these pre-feminism torture devices. What is with all this blasted hair? And what the devil was on my head?”
“I miss seeing women as you are now—feminine and yet strong,” Tyr said, clearly disappointed by her reaction. “I could take the clothes off.” His eyes ventured naughtily up and down her slender frame.
“If I have to wear something, make it battle gear.” Jaden grinned, instantly warming to the idea. She rubbed her hands thoughtfully. “And give me a giant sword.”
Within a blink, her arms became slanted down in armor. Beneath the press of unexpected metal, Jaden hollered in surprise as she fell backwards, weighted down. She landed with a thud in the cushioning of grass. A sword dropped from her hand, falling softly beside her. Tyr chuckled and leaned over her. His hands threaded behind his back as he gave her an innocent smile.
With a huff, Jaden pushed the helmet’s face plate up from her eyes. She was completely naked under the metal. The dress was gone. Glaring at him with feigned
anger, she said, “Get me out of this nightmare, Tyr. I don’t like being in your mind. And I think you should know you’re not the least bit funny.”
Tyr shrugged, his look disagreeing with her.
“Come on,” she urged, threatened by the softness in him. “Take me back.”
“You’ll have to give me a kiss first.”
Jaden pursed her lips together in mock defiance. Tyr fell to his knees. Leaning over, he didn’t give her time to protest as he pushed his lips to hers. Jaden laughed lightly and instantly melted, remembering the all-too-recent, familiar feel of him. The armor seemed to melt from her skin, replaced by his hand on the curve of her hip. Just as swiftly, he pulled away.
“Open,” he commanded her softly.
Jaden moaned, opening her eyes as if from a dream. She yawned, asking, “Did that happen?”
Tyr nodded. “I told you I would show you.”
“But all I saw was trees.” Suddenly, she realized she was laying naked beside him in full view. She sat up on the bed, remembering herself. Feeling a twinge on her inner thigh, she glanced down. A bruise formed around two puncture marks where he’d bit her. She got up from the bed. A sense of shame overcame her.
“Would you like to go somewhere else?” he offered. “Come lie down, I’ll show you a castle. Sometimes the knighted men can be convinced into fighting.”
“No, thanks, I’ll stay in this century for now.” Under her breath, she added, “I don’t like you having that kind of control.”
Tyr watched Jaden shrug into her clothing. Her passion had been of her own doing, as he’d refused to enhance or force it with his abilities. He’d wanted to see her pure response to him, wanted to know she was with him because it was of her choosing. He wanted her to know it as well.
His good humor went with her nakedness. He felt her hardening towards him and was helpless to stop it. As she had slept next to him, he had stared at her until the overwhelming urge to see her in sunlight came over him. In his mind was the only way he ever could. He enjoyed her in the dress, the tight-fitted waist, the feminine neckline that hugged so perfectly across her breasts, pushing them up for ample display. However, he could also tell she was uncomfortable in it.
“Come back to bed,” he urged. “I can heal that bruise for you.”
“Ah, no, I shouldn’t. In fact, we need to get a few things straight.”
He said nothing.
Jaden finished pulling up her jeans, wincing as it passed over her sore thigh. “We shouldn’t have done this and it won’t be happening again. You are a vampire and I am a dhampir. It’s wrong.”
“Do you never grow tired of that song?” A wave of displeasure came over him. He raised a brow, keeping his gaze devoid of emotion.
“We are enemies.” Her voice remained calm. “The truce is gone and there is nothing we can do to get it back. We made a mistake, one we won’t make again. We are enemies. This isn’t right. It should never have happened.”
Tyr stayed quiet, studying her. Inside he seethed at her dismissal of him. She’d used him to get what she wanted and now she was done with him.
“Don’t look at me like that. You know it’s true.” She began mumbling to herself about his age, her bad luck in finding him, and other half sentences he couldn’t quite make out. She didn’t want a child by a vampire. She didn’t want to curse another with her existence. She would never be fit as a mother.
Tyr knew her kind was prone to irrationality and bouts of insanity, but this was the first sense of it he had gotten from her. “Jaden,” he stated, to get her mind back on him.
“Don’t forget why you brought me here.” She ignored her own mini tirade. “You have your duty and I have mine. Every moment is a test. Even now I can feel you trying to get into my head. It won’t work. I am good at my job. My flesh may be weak, but my will is strong.”
“Then are you admitting to the crimes for which your uncle stands accused. You know what he’s done?” Tyr sat before her completely naked, his body in easy repose. He was unashamed, despite the unnerved way her eyes tried too hard not to look at him. If this was the way she wanted it, then so be it. “You are admitting it?”
Jaden realized he was livid. She couldn’t deal with his emotions at the moment. Now that she’d seen inside him, they were too powerful. Doing her best to block his feelings, which was made easier by the fact he tried to keep them from her, she endeavored to remain completely calm, but it was hard.
“No.” She tried to focus. It was difficult when her mind kept flashing images of his face in sunlight. Maybe if she gave him something, he would return the favor. Afterward she could work her way out of the mess she was in. “I found something, but...I don’t know. I couldn’t read it. Can you tell me what it is you think Mack has done? Just tell me and let me go. I’ll ask him about it. I’ll find out the truth. Let me deal with it.”
Tyr eyed her carefully. “What did you find?”
All softness was gone from his tone. By looking at his stony features, it was as if nothing had passed between them. She detected a bit of crimson near the shaft nestled by his thighs. It echoed the taste of his blood in her mouth. What had she done? He wasn’t her friend. He was her jailer. There could be no truce in this war.
Taking any excuse to leave his presence, Jaden hastened to her bag. She hesitated as she touched the book. As an alternative, she grabbed the yellowed piece of paper she’d discovered in her mother’s box. With a heavy heart, she pulled it out and went back out into the room to discover Tyr was completely dressed. She held up the paper, and lied, “I looked around like you suggested and this was all I found.”
Tyr reached out. Her look stopped him.
“If I show you this, then you have to share what you know.”
Tyr nodded and took the paper. A wall went up between them, neither of them facing the feelings that tried to surface. It was easier to concentrate on work and it was definitely easier to their natures to fight.
“I can’t read it.” Jaden hated feeling insecure. She found herself watching for a tender sentiment in him but she found only hardness. “I don’t understand the words. I’m not sure what language it’s in.”
“Gaelic.” Scanning the paper, he frowned. “Where did you get this?”
“In a box next to a picture of my mother.” Chills ran over her. “What does it say?”
“It’s an incantation of the old magic to get a female human pregnant with a vampire baby. It explains how your mother got pregnant. These were supposed to be destroyed long ago. The only known copy was traced to a French family of witches in the fourteenth century. It was assumed their incantation was lost to time.”
“My uncle’s tutor was French. Maybe she gave it to him. He said she was like a mother to him,” Jaden offered, trying to sound confident. She swayed on her feet. Mack knew all these years how she was conceived? By all her research, her birth was some fluke accident and Mack told her he didn’t know anything. She remembered asking him endlessly as a young girl, searching for answers to her past.
“It makes sense,” Tyr said, lost in thought. “Mack must have discovered Bhaltair and Rhona were lovers and used this incantation on them.”
Jaden paled, turning white to hear her father’s name said out loud and from Tyr’s lips. Her stomach folded in on itself, twisting into horrible knots. Her mind flashed, flooding her with memories of his death. The torrent of emotion and regret hit her like a mace. In her current state of insecurity, the rush was hard to fathom.
“Maybe it was not Mack who used it. Maybe he only found it later and kept it.”
“No.” Tyr’s finger ran over the words. “This particular recipe calls for the blood of a human brother and MacNaughton would’ve had to perform the ceremony.”
“Oh,” Jaden breathed, growing nauseous.
“Bhaltair had already made known his intent to turn Rhona to be with him to the council,” he continued, beginning to pace as he pieced the puzzle together. “And Rhona was most willing until
she got pregnant. They must have decided she would wait and bear the child, because if she was a vampire the child would never exist. You would never exist.”
Tyr turned to Jaden, a large part of the mystery solved. “The council has debated for years how it was Bhaltair got your mother pregnant. Charts of cosmic alignment have been pondered over, Rhona’s diet, her lineage. All came to nothing. This would explain it.”
Jaden swayed on her feet. Tyr, in his preoccupation, didn’t notice.
“But your mother was killed when you were only a year,” he said.
“And she was never turned,” Jaden offered. “Her death was an accident. She fell off a horse.”
“She was stabbed,” Tyr debated, his brow furrowing as he absently disputed Jaden’s claim. “I’ve seen the official report of the body from the investigating vampire’s own file. I was sent to see what would happen to the dhampir child. You were given to your uncle. But why would Mack want to create a dhampir? It doesn’t make sense. By all accounts he hates our kind.”
Jaden’s eyes clouded. She couldn’t get Bhaltair’s face out of her mind. She couldn’t focus past the lies her uncle had told her. When she looked at Tyr, she knew he spoke the truth.
“Something’s missing from the story, though.” Tyr’s eyes scanned the paper. He was lost in deep thought. “Mack took you away, trained you. For a while you were lost to us, even Bhaltair. He petitioned the council for help several times. When we finally located you, you were fully grown. Bhaltair tried to approach you once, I’m told.”
“Yes,” Jaden said, remembering the man who stood before her, arms open wide, a smile across his undead face. She remembered every detail of the encounter, every heated word. Oh, how she hated him then. How she despised him for her existence. “I sent him away. I told him I never wanted to see him again.”
“Yes, he came back to Europe and spoke on your behalf to the tribal council. Due to your upbringing, they had decided to kill you if you didn’t accept your father’s offer to join him. He begged them to give you another chance. They granted his request to wait a few years so that your anger was given time to lessen. Then, this past spring, he went back over to meet with you and—”
The Jaded Hunter Page 17