More Than Life (Arcane Crossbreeds)

by Vyne, Amanda

  “Aren’t you?” She dropped her forehead to the door. Her confusion and desperation fluttered weakly against him. His telepathic connection to her had been strong once, but now she felt so frail, a bare pulse of energy teasing the edges of his mind. It had been so long since he’d seen her. Smelled her. He’d thought he’d never do so again. It was killing him to stay where he was. God, her scent alone had his stomach tied up in knots.

  “Never.” His dragon filled him, writhing in its fury. “How long have you been here? Your uncle – ”

  “No,” she snapped. “Leave my uncle out of this. I can only imagine what he thinks happened, what you told him.” She turned, sweeping her gaze over the room as she tentatively navigated around the bed, extending her hand to feel blindly for its edge. It was the only piece of furniture in the room. It didn’t take a genius to guess what the Elemental expected to happen here, even if he hadn’t spelled it out in their earlier meeting.

  We need you to finish the mating.

  “There was no mating. No mate.”

  There shouldn’t be, yet his body, his dragon, wasn’t on board with his denial. As soon as they’d slid the connecting door open, her scent had surrounded him and he was right back in his apartment with her stretched out over his kitchen island and him struggling to keep his dragon under control. This time her scent was muskier and a hell of a lot more potent.

  She was coming into heat. If she contained even a smidge of Drachon genetics – which he suspected she did, thanks to these fuckers – once she went fully into heat, compatible or not, he would be unable to resist her. His dragon would want to mate her and wouldn’t stop until she was breeding. “Wouldn’t you rather know what your uncle told me?” Lies. Or were they? He’d never trusted the bastard, but Katya loved him. He was her last living relative, so Raife had always made an effort at civility. He couldn’t judge her relationship with her uncle by his own experience with family because his species was very different from hers. Sanguen were cold and formal to a degree that it was hard to determine if any affection existed.

  “Why would I believe anything you say?” She clenched her eyes shut and then opened them again with another shake of her head and a small frustrated sound.

  “You can control the infrared vision. Concentrate on it. Breathe slowly. Slow your heart rate. It’s a hunting tool for Drachon.” When she closed her eyes, he studied her face with a frown. What the hell had they done to her? How much of her was Drachon now? Was mating a possibility?

  She lifted her gaze back up to him. “What do you want from me?”

  What did he want? That was a loaded question full of possibilities that had his body reacting violently. She stared up at him, a tremble working through her as though she were ready to run at his slightest move. A little wild thing. So different from the girl he’d tenderly laid on the frilly white spread of her bed all those months ago.

  “I just want to help.”

  “I’ll bet.” She angled her chin up and held the contact with his eyes. “Why did they send you in here? Did they think I would fall into your arms again, willing to do anything they wanted?”

  “Damn it, Katya.” Raife sucked in a frustrated breath, and her scent infused him, so filled with promise his dragon was practically purring. His body heated, those marks on his chest burning with such ferocity he instinctively pressed his palm against them to gain some relief. His dragon expanded, filling him until there was a faint ringing in his ears.

  That Elemental bastard was right. They were little more than animals, and as such they had a strong instinct for survival. He needed a mate to survive, and his dragon had already marked her as theirs. What if she was compatible now? It wasn’t a stretch to question the feasibility of it. Only one step in that direction would send him over the crumbling edge of his control, and he would claim her as his.

  With a hissing inhale of her own, she stepped back from him, her strange eyes filling with fear. “What have you done?”

  “What have I done?” Raife forced himself back under control. “I haven’t done anything. I’m as much a victim as you.”

  “Right. And you’ve been where the past several months?”

  Raife turned away from her and ran a hand through his hair.

  “That’s what I thought. You don’t get to come back here and do this to me. Make me feel like this.”

  He glanced back at her. She was poised. He wasn’t sure if it was for flight or fight. Her pupils had shrunk, once again round. The pale blue color he remembered was back, although still ringed in red. She stared at him. Chest rising and falling.

  Inside, where his dragon hovered in wait, he felt that unrelenting hunger stir. He’d sent Katya away once, and it had hollowed him. There was not much sacrifice left in him. He had little of his humanity left to temper his instincts, and right now they screamed for him to take her, make her his. Fate had brought Katya back, and he didn’t know if he could let her go again.

  Hell, he was pretty damn sure he couldn’t.

  “I didn’t do this, Katya. I think we’ve been paired.” Her scent was ripening, filling his nose and coating his lips. His body responded to it, his skin tightened, the pinch of pain from his mating marks making the surge of desire that much stronger, sharpening his senses.

  “Paired?” Her nostrils flared, no doubt scenting his growing arousal. She backed away from him. “No.”

  “Katya…”

  “That’s why you did this?” Her voice rose steadily until she was shouting. “So you could mate me?”

  “Katya, listen to me.”

  She frantically shook her head, her breasts rising temptingly beneath the lab coat as her anger swelled, seeming to fill the small space, quickly disintegrating into panic. She pressed her hands to her middle. “Oh God, and they gave me your blood.”

  Her fear mingled with the pungent scent of her body’s response to his blood, the heady ripening of her womb. It wrapped around him, blanketing his rational mind, making it harder to focus. Harder to remember why he had turned her away in the first place.

  “If I intended to fucking mate you, I would have done it when I had you all soft and warm on my kitchen counter.” Raife clenched his fists against the hunger screwing with his control. He tried to swallow down the fury of it, but it clung to his throat, roughening his voice. “I tried to save you from it. I sent you away.” And it had nearly killed him.

  “Save me?” Her voice bordered on hysterical. “By sending me here? Thanks a lot.” She laughed, a hard and cold sound he’d never heard pass her lips before.

  “I didn’t send you here. I took you to your uncle.” A rumble expanded in his chest. “After that I don’t know what happened. He was supposed to marry you into some snooty House in Wales.” Far from him.

  “You think my uncle sent me here? He loves me.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. Her fiery gaze darted around the room before landing on him. “No, I don’t believe you.”

  “I didn’t say he sent you here.” Although he was beginning to suspect that. It would be something high on his priority list to find out once he got out of this place. That bloodsucking asshole would die if he had endangered his mate. His mate? He scented the thick air. No, not yet but soon. “I would never subject you to this shit. I swear it.”

  “Like you swore you would never hurt me? Always protect me?”

  Raife gritted his teeth against the accusation, one that hovered too damn close to his own fears. Had he failed her somehow? By trusting her uncle? By not following up to be sure she was safe and happy? He’d carried her unconscious body into her uncle’s house and left, never looking back because he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to stay away. Maybe he had failed her.

  “I’ll get you out of here.”

  “Do you swear it?” Katya laughed, clenching and unclenching her hands at her sides. She was pacing like an addict jonesing for her next fix. Or a female coming into heat. “No. I don’t need your promises. I take care of myself now.”

 
Why that felt so much like a blow to the chest, he didn’t know, but it left him with a deep ache. And a mounting fury. “Well that’s too fucking bad, kitten.”

  She faced him, rubbing desperately at her arms as her eyes glittered with a beguiling mix of desire and anger. “Don’t call me that.”

  He smiled in feral satisfaction. The heat had to be leaving her cold now even as her insides began to burn. Soon she would ache. An ache that only he could relieve. The thought of covering her body with his gave him a little surge of pleasure, though a tiny part of him feared her reaction to the mating. Drachon matings were fierce.

  “Do you feel that, kitten? All cold and hot,” Raife taunted and raked his gaze over her. “That means I’ll be taking care of you again, whether you like it or not.” As the words left his lips, he wanted to take them back. He didn’t want to demean her or the mating. He sure as hell didn’t intend to hurt her.

  “Is that right?” Katya dropped her voice to a purr. His cock strained against his zipper as she moved toward him—all fluid grace and sensuality—until her sweet breath fanned his chin. “Well, somebody can get fucked,” she rasped, those glistening lips suddenly turning up into a sneer, “but it sure as hell won’t be me. In fact” – she turned away abruptly and yelled up at the camera in the ceiling – “you all can go get fucked.”

  Raife lifted one brow in surprise at her language as he watched her lithe movements, his gaze drawn to her full, high breasts. They moved enticingly as she swung her arm in a lewd gesture at the ceiling. He tried not to notice, but his heat had been riding him hard for days now. Hell. Months.

  “I don’t know what the hell you bastards are trying to prove, but I won’t just lie down for your little Frankenstein games. You can put me back in the hole and let me fucking rot for all I care, but I won’t perform for your freak show.”

  “Katya, stop.” Raife swallowed and hunched forward, attempting to relieve the throbbing in his cock. God, her new attitude, as shocking as it was, turned him on. He stumbled toward the large picture window in the far wall and pulled the curtain back just far enough to let the midday sun heat his flesh, careful to keep the damaging rays from touching her where she stood behind him. With a sigh, he rapped his knuckles on the cool, thick panes. Ballistic glass like that in his own room – impossible to break.

  He heard her restless movements, could smell her getting closer. “Stop what? Screaming? Oh, you haven’t even seen my new vocal skills yet.”

  The only warning was the sharp inhalation before she emitted a sound that was pitched too high for most ears. He whirled about in time to see the recessed lights pop, raining sparks down in the room around them.

  “Katya,” he snapped. “Stop it before they remove you.”

  Silence.

  She blinked once, her chest heaving with each frantic gasp. She darted a glance to the ceiling, then to the shards of glass that littered the floor around them. When she looked back at him, accusation shadowed the blue depths of her eyes.

  “In that case…” Katya inhaled deep and pitched her voice higher. His flesh tightened painfully, heating beneath the high-frequency vibrations of her voice. Nausea roiled in his throat, and he swallowed it down.

  “That’s enough!” He forced the weight of his voice into her mind.

  “What?” Something moved through her eyes, something vulnerable, but it was gone before he could fully identify it. “You don’t like the new skills?”

  “Katya,” he rasped, pushing away the lingering pain. “I can’t possibly guess what your life has been like these last few months, but – ”

  “No.” She advanced a step, and there was the tiniest flare of light in the wide dark pupils. “You can’t. You couldn’t possibly even begin to guess.”

  Raife frowned. Had he just seen a retinal spark in her eyes? That was a Drachon trait and a warning that instinctively had him tensing in anticipation of trouble. It wasn’t long in coming.

  Her fists clenched, and she screamed again. It started as a purely feminine sound of fury, but soon morphed into a silent, more destructive force. He leaped out of the way as the curtains where he had stood moments before smoked, erupting into a flame that quickly moved up the fabric.

  She snapped her mouth shut and stared at the curtains, bemusement marking her features as the fire consumed them.

  The panel fell from the window, harsh midday sun streaming in. He lunged at her, wrapping himself around her to protect her from the fall, and rolled them to the smooth cement floor on the opposite side of the bed, away from the sun.

  “Damn it, Katya. You could have been seriously burned.”

  Her blue eyes were confused as she looked up at him from her position beneath the bulk of his body. “What – How did I do that?”

  Raife pushed up, his arms braced on either side of her head, trying to keep from crushing her as he inhaled deeply to slow the panicked pounding of his heart. Every cell in his body seized.

  She was in heat.

  Full-blown, time’s-up, they-were-both-fucked heat.

  The scent from the heat of her body infused the air between them, called to him, offering him that ever-elusive chimera of hope. His dragon was mindless, desperate in its need for survival. It didn’t understand that she couldn’t make life from his seed. They were two different species. It only comprehended that she was a fertile female and possibly his only chance.

  An unnatural growl of hunger roiled up through his stomach, clenching the muscles, filling his chest and his throat. He closed his eyes to discourage the ravenous bastard crouched inside him, but it could scent her. It wanted her, and he couldn’t blame it.

  He wanted her.

  The last vestiges of his sanity knew how futile it was even if the dragon didn’t.

  Powerful tremors of that unrelenting hunger rocked him. Ever present, gouging at his soul, dehumanizing him. He clenched his hands, tried to control it, tried to resist.

  Katya had been so sweet and innocent, her white blonde hair curling around her shoulders like a halo. As she grew into a woman, it had gotten harder and harder to ignore the current of sensuality he felt when he spoke telepathically to her. He had wanted to be the one to delve into that well of untapped sexuality seething beneath her surface for the longest time, but she was Sanguen. He wasn’t willing to sacrifice her future on a hollow promise of a life. Not when she couldn’t ever share his.

  Or could she? He glanced back at the bare window. Manipulating sound to such an extent was definitely a Drachon trait, and she’d rocked it. Hard. Could she truly mate him? With a trembling hand, he reached out to touch her.

  She wrapped her small fingers around his wrist, stopping him. Her pupils were still ringed in the blood aurora, and her breasts rose and fell with each labored breath. “What is happening here?”

  “Mating.” He closed his eyes, tried to escape the intensity of his urges, but her scent surrounded him. “You’ve come into heat from my blood.”

  “Mating.” She breathed the word, as though tasting it for the first time, and then jerked her hand back from him with frantic shake of her head. “That can’t be possible.”

  “What did you think was happening all those months ago?” Raife met her eyes and pushed up to his knees. “You marked me.” He ripped his tattered T-shirt over his head and pressed a hand over the scratches that burned like a fresh brand. “It’s not only possible, kitten,” Raife rumbled. That alluring scent teased his dragon, tempted him. “But it’s damn near im-possible to stop.”

  Chapter Four

  “Well, you’ll just have to make a better effort.”

  Katya huddled on the floor between his legs. It was too intimate a position, especially since she could feel the heat of him, see that telltale bulge behind the fly of his jeans. She pressed back against the unyielding concrete floor, the responding throb between her legs almost painful.

  Just the sight of his big body hovering over her had her pressing her thighs together to ease the ache. Her gaze was drawn to
those four long, thin marks stretching across his chest like an accusation. A promise. She couldn’t remember putting them there, but she knew she had. She still felt it, a resonance deep inside her of that savage victory she’d experienced when she marked him. It was a ghostly echo that was rousing back to roaring, burning life.

  It brought her body back to life in a way that she didn’t want to face right now. She ached from the inside out. Even her breasts ached, the tips prickling until she wanted to press her palms against them. More than that, she wanted Raife to do it.

  That was the craziest part.

  She shouldn’t want Raife to do shit. She wanted to hate him. She wanted the thought of him touching her to leave her cold, not burning hot. Most of all, she wanted to believe that it was just the blood they’d given her that made her want him. But all of that was her denial talking, and she was smart enough to know it. She just wasn’t strong enough to resist the real truth.

  She wanted him.

  He still looked so big and safe she could hardly believe he wasn’t still the same man from her childhood, the only one she had ever trusted never to hurt her. What a joke! She didn’t know who she could trust anymore. Definitely no one in this place. He’d callously knocked her out and, quite possibly, left her in this hellhole. Yet she still wanted him. Even as she rejected him, she was helpless to prevent her gaze from moving over him with longing and hunger.

  She hated herself for that.

  Not that the fiery little emotion did much to quell the heat in her body or stop her gaze from wandering where it shouldn’t.

  The sun pierced around the angles of his body as he knelt above her, creating a halo that cast him in shadow. Her gaze was inherently drawn to the tribal tattoo of a dragon, the one that had so intrigued her as a girl. It was dark and menacing; its eyes glittered with intent – almost alive. The claws of the mythological beast clutched at the bunched muscles across his chest and wrapped over the swell of his shoulder.