Rebirth of the Vampire King (Blood Fire Saga Book 6)

by Bella Klaus

“Your acceptance means everything to me, Innamorata. I haven’t stopped loving you since you left Logris. Even after I rose from the ashes, broken and unfeeling, that part of me wanted you to be mine forever.”

  The words were a balm to my soul. I leaned into him, my throat thickening. “Those three years we spent apart, I was furious at what I thought was your betrayal,” I rasped. “No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t get you out of my system. I should have known from the way you haunted my dreams that we were already soulmates.”

  Valentine pressed a kiss on my lips, setting my skin alight. “I love you.”

  Happy tears filled my vision. “Not as much as I love you.”

  He laid me on the bed of poppies and hovered over me, resting his weight on his elbows. His eyes glistened—perhaps with tears as happy as mine. It was hard to tell when my own vision blurred.

  “I will kill Kresnik for you,” he growled in a voice trembling with conviction. “I will destroy every part of him until there’s nothing left to come after you or our family.”

  A shocked breath whistled through my teeth. “You still want children with me after knowing what I am?”

  Valentine stilled, his brows drawing together. “We discussed children at least twice. Whatever makes you think I will have changed my mind?”

  “Ummm…” I swallowed. “You were stuck in a soul and didn’t know if or when you’d return to your body, the other time, you were a preternatural incapable of having children. Maybe it hadn’t occurred to you back then that I was no longer a Neutral.”

  His lips grazed mine in a petal soft kiss that made every muscle melt off my bones. “Vampires and shifters mate and have children all the time. If we end up having a clutch of baby phoenixes and never have any vampire offspring, I will still have an heir.”

  “Are you sure?” One of the reasons Neutrals were so sought after was because anyone having children with them was guaranteed offspring with identical or better powers. It was as though the latent magic mingled with that of the other parent and upgraded that of the child.

  “Mera.” He cupped my cheek. “I intend to rule Logris for centuries before thinking about a replacement. We have all the time in the world to worry about children.”

  I nodded, letting his words sink in. “I’m glad you’re including Kain in our family.”

  His lips stretched into a smile of sparkling eyes and gleaming white teeth that melted my heart. “He’s a terrific young vampire. It makes me happy to know you’ve already formed a bond.”

  “Is that why you brought him to London to guard me?”

  “Precisely.” His lips found mine in a lingering kiss, indicating that the conversation was over.

  I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling our bodies together, and moaned.

  Valentine slid his hands beneath my tank top, pulling the garment over my head and tossing it aside. He drew back, raking gaze over my bare breasts, and flared his nostrils. “Sometimes it’s hard to believe how lucky I am to have a woman of such radiant beauty.”

  A smile curled my lips. “Now you know how I feel when I’m with you.”

  “It’s impossible to adore anyone as much as I adore you, Innamorata.”

  “Why don’t you show me?” I stretched out my arms and pulled him down for a kiss.

  It was deeper than before, urgent, as though he had taken my words seriously and was determined to demonstrate the depth of his love. Each swipe of his tongue, each roll of his hips against mine caused the furnace deep in my core to overheat.

  The urge to unwrap Valentine made my fingers tremble. It had been over three years since we’d made love without the influence of death or curses or as souls, and I wanted this first time to be perfect.

  “Let me undress you,” I murmured into the kiss.

  “I’m yours.”

  Valentine kneaded my breast with his large warm hand, rolling my sensitive nipple between his thick fingers. Sparks of pleasure raced across my skin, settling in the juncture between my thighs. My lips parted with a gasp, which Valentine swallowed with his kiss.

  I fumbled at the buttons of his stiff jacket, then the waistcoat, then the shirt, unwrapping my prize until I reached smooth-as-silk flesh warmed by nothing but passion and the beat of his heart.

  “Move your arms.” I slid my hands beneath the cotton fabric of his shirt, pushing the bunched-up garments over his muscular shoulders.

  He leaned back, resting his weight on his knees with a playful growl, letting me slide my hands beneath his biceps. Once I’d removed all the clothes from his upper body, I caressed the contours of his pectoral muscles, making sure to graze his dark nipples.

  Valentine hissed through his teeth, the erection grinding against my belly seeming to swell. “Keep doing that, and I’ll spend.”

  “I’ve heard vampires can keep going long after they’ve climaxed.”

  His brows rose. “I don’t recall telling you that.”

  “Girl talk.” I reached down and wrapped my fingers over the thick bulge in his pants, but he grabbed my wrists. “What?”

  “I want to pleasure you first.” He moved my hands aside, sucking my nipple into his hot mouth, and continuing to fondle the other breast. His tongue flicked over the sensitive peak, somehow making me feel those sensations directly on my clit.

  Grabbing his broad shoulders, I moaned and squeezed my thighs together, but he wedged them apart with his legs and trailed kisses all the way down my ribcage.

  “Oh,” I murmured through panting breaths. “That sort of pleasure.”

  He dipped his tongue in my bellybutton and stared up at me through violet eyes darkened with flecks of red. “Any objections?”

  “None whatsoever.” I shook my head for emphasis.

  Each kiss on my belly sent bolts of pleasure racing down to my core, even when Valentine eased my leggings down my thighs but didn’t venture any further than my pubic bone.

  The heat swirling inside me gathered, creating a need for Valentine more intense than the deepest ache. I bit down on my lip, stifling my frustration with a moan.

  “What do you want, Innamorata?” he asked, his voice thick with lust.

  I threaded my fingers through his silky hair. “You said you would pleasure me. I need your tongue.”

  “And you shall have it.” He parted my thighs and groaned. “Everything about you is divine.”

  I gazed down at my body, where Valentine rested between my legs, laying me bare to his hungry gaze. Heat flooded my cheeks, and my breath came in shallow pants. “Now, please.”

  The corners of his lips curled into a smile, and he lowered himself to my exposed sex, trailing a slow line with his tongue from my opening to my throbbing clit.

  It was like molten fire, and explosion of ecstasy that set every nerve ending alight. The furnace in my core heated like water thrown on hot coals. My breath caught, my back arched, and I panted for more.

  With an approving hum, Valentine returned with a series of licks and strokes and flicks of the tongue that had me panting hard, clutching at the poppy stems, and trying not to turn into a ball of fire.

  “You are delicious.” He held my legs in place with his large hands, devouring my sex with open-mouthed kisses.

  The circular strokes of his tongue swirled pleasure around my clit, making it spiral around my core. Its muscles spasmed and clenched, needing anything—fingers, tongue, or his thick length—to fill the aching void.

  “Valentine,” I moaned. “If you keep doing that, I might burst into flame.”

  “You won’t,” he growled.

  I raised myself up on my elbows, panting with a mix of confusion and need. “How do you—”

  He wrapped his lips around my clit and sucked, making all the pleasure that had built up explode through my insides. I cried out, every limb on my body trembling through my climax and feeling like I’d been reduced to a spray of sparks, but still I wanted more.

  “Valentine, please,” I sobbed.

  He continued h
is relentless onslaught, prolonging my orgasm until the explosions reduced to a more comfortable intensity. When my breathing slowed and I was satisfied and boneless, he kissed a trail back up my body and settled his hips between my thighs.

  By the time our eyes met, his irises were a vivid red bordered with a deep scarlet that appeared nearly black. “Are you ready for more, Innamorata?”

  “With you?” I reached down to the waistband of his pants and unbuttoned them with shaking fingers. “Always.”

  Instead of taking over undressing himself with vampire speed, Valentine allowed me to unfasten his fly and pull down the waistband of his silk boxers until I wrapped my fingers around his hot and pulsing length.

  “Once I have you, there will be no turning back.” He stared down at me with an intensity that made my heart flip.

  I shook my head and smiled. There was no need for him to warn me. Not when I’d seen every aspect of his personality and accepted him even when his antics drove me crazy. And I knew deep in my soul that he accepted me at my most aggravating.

  Valentine and I had been together so long, and he’d guided me so much that he would always influence me no matter how much time we spent apart.

  “This is what I’ve wanted the entire time,” I murmured. “You and me and our family.”

  “And my kingdom.”

  “Your kingdom, too,” I murmured.

  “You’ll be mine forever?” he asked.

  “Until the rest of my days.”

  A tiny tremor shook the ground beneath us. As I raised myself onto my elbows, it deepened into an earthquake.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  My stomach trembled in sync with the ground. I dug my elbows into the earth and tensed my muscles, ready to scramble up if the rumble escalated into an earthquake.

  Valentine hovered above me, resting his weight on his forearms, the ends of his raven hair backlit by the light of the realm’s artificial sky. Nothing on his features said he was even concerned about the seismic disturbance beneath our bodies.

  “What the hell is that?” I whispered.

  He leaned down and placed a kiss on the tip of my nose. “The magic of this realm is linked to my life-force.”

  “What does that mean?” I pushed myself up. “Are you—”

  “No.” He cupped the side of my face. “When I commissioned the spell, it was tied to my life-force. The house fell apart as you moved the soul nucleus back into my body, disrupting the magical link between me and this realm.”

  “Alright…” I supposed it worked in a similar way to the wards around the Notting Hill safe house, which only remained in place until Valentine had died. “But what about the ground?”

  “You accepted me, body and soul.” Valentine’s eyes shone with happiness, their corners crinkling. “It was bound to affect my magic.”

  As the rumbling beneath us calmed, the tension in my muscles eased. “Does that mean we have a bond?”

  “Or the beginnings of one.” He placed a butterfly-soft kiss on my lips. “Would you like to deepen our connection?”

  All the anxiety that had tightened my chest melted away, leaving me to exhale my relief. “Please.”

  Valentine lowered me back onto the poppies, this time resting his weight on mine like a warm blanket. The love and desire shining in his eyes made my breath quicken and my core pulse with a deep yearning for his touch.

  Instead of the gradual brush of his lips I’d expected, he lavished me with a deep kiss that made my toes curl. His tongue caressed mine with strokes that I swore I could feel across my every erogenous zone. It was a soul-deep kiss that acknowledged our connection, our shared passion, our love.

  As Valentine’s thick length ground against my clit, I clung to his broad back, panting, moaning, squirming with desire.

  “Oh…” I said, my voice breathy. “If you don’t enter me right now, I think I’ll explode.”

  With a chuckle, he lined the blunt tip of his erection against my opening. I was so hot and slick and ready that I shuddered with anticipation. Tilting my hips toward him, I slid my hands down to his ass and dug my fingers into his hard flesh.

  The initial stretch was delicious, making me inhale a sharp breath. No matter how many times we’d had sex and in how many positions, he still filled me with an intensity that sent ripples of pleasure across my core.

  “Valentine,” I whispered between panting breaths.

  “You are perfection.” His deep voice resonated through my soul. “And all mine.”

  “Yours,” I repeated, my chest filled with the sensation of giddy butterflies.

  He continued entering me with shallow thrusts at a pace I found achingly tame compared to how we’d had sex when he was a preternatural. I clamped around him, digging the pads of my fingers into his glutes, making him hiss through his teeth.

  “I love how we fit.” His voice was tight with lust as he sheathed himself to the hilt.

  Valentine leaned down, joining bodies so we lay chest to chest, our breaths synchronizing to our matching heartbeats. He peppered my face with soft kisses as my muscles adjusted around his girth. “I could spend an eternity making love to you and it still wouldn’t be enough.”

  “I wish we could stay like this forever,” I whispered.

  He hummed his agreement, and brought his hips back, pulling out of me at a luxuriously slow pace that had my muscles closing around him. Just as the thick head of his erection stretched my opening once more, he pushed into me with a thrust that made sparks explode behind my eyes.

  Valentine was so hard and hot and heavy, the rush of ecstasy he pumped into me was more addictive than thrall.

  I was lost. Lost in pleasure, in passion, in a rhapsody of bliss, I threw my head back and panted.

  Back and forth he went, building up to a rhythm that had me crying and writhing and moving my hips in counterpoint to his thrusts. Valentine kept me suspended in that daze of pleasure where all I could do was take the sensations, let him push me higher and higher and higher until it felt like I was teetering at the edge of a precipice.

  His fangs pierced my skin, and I tumbled forward, free-falling with my wings outstretched. My vision turned blank, and white-hot pleasure raced along my every nerve. Invisible flames lapped at my skin, and I clung to Valentine, checking that my orgasm hadn’t incinerated him the way it had in the dreamscape.

  At that moment, I felt a connection with him that was hotter than hellfire, deeper than the darkest abyss. It would remain in place no matter what lay ahead of us in the battle ahead.

  Valentine continued thrusting into me, drawing out the sensations until his roar filled my ears, and he shuddered his climax.

  Cradling me in his arms, he positioned us so my head rested against his chest. The steady thrum of his heart against my eardrum reverberated across my entire body, confirming that Valentine really was alive. Alive and in the outside world. Alive and in possession of his memories. Alive and in love with me.

  “At last,” he whispered.

  “We’re finally together.” I rested my arm across his muscular torso and sighed both out of relief and satisfaction.

  “I’ll spend the rest of eternity we have together proving I am worthy of your love,” he murmured.

  My brow furrowed. “Are you still feeling bad about what happened when you had no soul?”

  His lack of reply was answer enough.

  “Valentine.” I raised myself off his chest and stared into his violet eyes. “When you sacrificed yourself with that solid-flame dagger, it told me that your love for me meant more than your family, your kingdom, and even your own life. It’s me who owes you the debt.”

  He turned his head away.

  I rose to my knees and pinned him to the poppies with both hands on his shoulders. “Some of the things we did were exciting.”

  “You want to be disciplined?”

  “Not when you say it like that.” I gave him a shove and turned my gaze to the cottage burning in the distance. “What ha
ppened to the faerie you employed to take care of me?”

  “She left the moment I brought you inside.”

  “Right.” I chewed on the inside of my cheek. Of course she would. The previous incarnation of Valentine had brought me here to work off my hospital debts with blood and sex. Perhaps that was why Valentine was struggling so much to forgive himself.

  “Mera.” He slid a hand up my arm. “I’m going to have the cottage rebuilt. Will you—”

  “No.” I shot to my feet.

  Valentine rose, staring down at me with grave eyes. I didn’t need to read his mind to know what that look meant. Despite all the danger we’d survived—together and apart—he still wanted me away from the battle, preferably behind these wards, in the safety of the Hansel and Gretel cottage with all its defenses.

  “Mera—”

  “No.” I glanced around the poppy patch for my clothes, picked up my leggings, and slipped them up my calves.

  “Let me speak.”

  After pulling them up to my hips, I looked for signs of my top. “Don’t bother. I already know what you’re going to say, and I’m not staying behind to let you face what’s going to be a brutal battle.”

  “You’re forgetting that it was mere days ago that Kresnik and that demon defiled your body,” he growled.

  My stomach tied itself into painful knots. Stepping back from Valentine, I clutched my belly and winced.

  He cupped the side of my face, the warmth of his touch seeping into my skin like a balm. “All I want is to keep you safe. It wasn’t my intention to make you relive that trauma.”

  I pulled away from Valentine, picked up my top, and dusted it off. His words hadn’t hurt me, just the shock of remembering that all parts of the man I loved had access to my lowest point since Kresnik’s resurrection. In his position, I would have said the same thing.

  When I met Valentine’s eyes, the skin around them was creased, and his brows drew together. The sight of him looking so concerned for my welfare made my heart clench.

  Sucking in a deep breath and pushing it to the bottom of my lungs, I gathered my resolve and forced myself not to flounder at his pain. “Don’t forget that I’ve seen you die, fall into the control of monsters, get decapitated, and burn to ash.”