Wild and Free

by Kristen Ashley

  Delilah’s nails sank into his flesh, but he didn’t feel it.

  He didn’t feel anything.

  She will never die.

  “You must feed from her regularly, Abel, starting once a day for several days. Then twice a day for perhaps another week. Then you can likely feed from her whenever you wish, doing her great good while you do,” Gregor said.

  He heard it. He understood it.

  He still didn’t move or speak.

  She will never die.

  “Honey,” Delilah called.

  She will never die.

  “Baby,” Delilah called again.

  He felt her leaning into him, her hand on his neck, squeezing.

  She will never die.

  “Abel, baby, this is good,” she whispered into his ear.

  That was when he moved. In a blur, he had her in his arms, and in seconds, he was tossing her on the bed in their bedroom.

  She bounced, blinked, and looked up to him.

  “You’ll never die.”

  She stared at him before her face went soft, her eyes shining bright and her lips started curving.

  “Told you you were awesome,” she whispered.

  Fuck, she was right.

  She was fucking right.

  He was awesome.

  Because he could keep his Delilah alive.

  Forever.

  He lunged.

  He’d had a bag of blood brought up while she was doing her hair, thinking the other vampires in residence were probably doing the same thing.

  But he still drew from her as he fucked her, hard, fast, rough, quick, making her cry out when she came, his cock driving deep, her blood flooding his mouth.

  She will never die.

  He’d have that, all of it (or countless varieties of it, they had centuries to get creative), for a lifetime.

  His lifetime.

  She will never die.

  Fucking finally.

  * * * * *

  Abel lay on his back, naked, Delilah on top of him, also naked, with his cock still inside her since he rolled her there after he rode her.

  Her head and shoulders were up. She was looking down at him, the fingertips of one hand stroking lazy on his chest, his hands were curled on her ass.

  “What’s in that awesome head of yours?” she asked softly.

  “Coulda saved Hui,” he told the ceiling.

  “Abel—”

  “Mei.”

  “Honey—”

  “Sying.”

  She slid her hand to his neck. “Baby, stop.”

  He tipped just his eyes to her. “Coulda saved ’em all.”

  “That wasn’t meant to be,” she told him gently.

  “Obviously not,” he replied caustically.

  “Okay, I’m trying to go easy here, so cut me some slack, but I’ll point out that feeding is sexual.”

  He looked back to the ceiling, his gut roiling at the idea of drawing from any of them.

  Obviously, in the beginning, when he was a kid, feeding was feeding.

  But she was right. When his body started changing and the world became all about his dick and how he could get off, he’d never drawn from anything but a human female, giving it to her as he took.

  Doing that to Hui, Mei, Sying—it would be like having sex with your sister. Or your mother.

  “You wouldn’t do that so maybe it’s good they never knew you could,” she suggested. “And that you never knew either.”

  He couldn’t argue that, but it didn’t make him move out of his current dark mood.

  “Since I knew I’d have you, lived knowin’ I’d lose you,” he told the ceiling.

  “I know, baby, but you won’t lose me now.”

  “No,” he stated, again giving her his eyes. “Now I gotta worry about losin’ you to these fuckin’ Prophesies. Had a whole twenty minutes to celebrate. Now I know I can have you forever with me, and that hangs over our heads. So somehow that makes the thought of losin’ you worse.”

  She stiffened on top of him. “We’re not gonna let the evil supernaturals beat us.”

  “Yeah? You’re sure? ’Cause they probably got witches on their side, pissed witches, who got knifes that can fuck an immortal up.”

  “That wasn’t the best news of the day,” she muttered, her eyes drifting to his shoulder.

  Too much was flooding his mind; he couldn’t sort it all. He needed space, so he dug his fingers into the flesh of her ass and ordered, “Off me, pussycat.”

  He saw the hurt shift through her eyes, but before he could do anything about it, she rolled off. He moved to catch her, doing it with human speed, which was a mistake. She kept rolling and was off the bed, nabbing her panties and pulling them up.

  “Bao bei, just need some room to think and breathe,” he explained.

  “You got it,” she said, her voice forced to light. “You gave that to me yesterday. I’ll give it to you now. I’ll go downstairs. Check on Chen and Jabber. Go and tell the others you need a few hours and we can start again.”

  She said all this while struggling to put on her bra. When she finally got it on, he moved, grabbing her hips and yanking her back into the bed, settling them on their sides, her back to his front, their bodies curved to each other.

  “By ‘room to think and breathe,’ I just meant you off my cock. I still want you at my side,” he said in her ear.

  She took in a deep breath, but it was ragged.

  What the fuck?

  “Lilah,” he growled.

  “You have this…thing where you turn off on me, pull away from me,” she explained, but did it facing the pillows. “It’s just seconds, but I lose you and I don’t mean your dick. I mean whatever is going on in your head.”

  “I don’t do that.”

  She twisted her neck to catch his gaze. “Yeah, you do.”

  “Tell me when I did that,” he demanded.

  “Just now,” she replied.

  “I explained that.”

  “You didn’t see your face when you told me to get off you.”

  Fuck.

  “When else did I do it?” he asked.

  She averted her eyes and started to scoot away, muttering, “It doesn’t matter.”

  He hooked her with an arm at her belly and yanked her back. “Answer me.”

  She twisted to look at him again. “You know, I’m going to be essentially immortal too. So all that gut-wrenching despair I felt for you and with you and for me when I got my head out of my ass and realized how shitty your life had to be and how awesome and tragic it was you finally got me, that was for nothing. We should be celebrating. Not edging toward a fight.”

  “I agree, except about the part you’re using not to answer me.”

  She turned in his arms to face him. “We have a world to save, Abel.”

  “And now you’re using that not to answer me.”

  “I don’t touch your face,” she declared suddenly.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I don’t touch your face,” she repeated.

  He shook his head in confusion. “Why not?”

  “Because the first time I tried, you pulled away from me.”

  Fuck, he did.

  And she was right, she’d touched his neck, she’d kissed him, she’d touched his hair, but she’d not once touched his face or even tried since that night.

  And she’d given him total access from the first time he fucked her. Nothing was off limits, not when they were fucking, not when they weren’t.

  He’d waited lifetimes for her. He had her. He touched her all the time, held her all the time. But more, she shared liberally and he always had her attention. Fuck, as she was walking to her friend’s burial, the burial of a man Abel had known for days, when he let her hand go, she looked to him to include him in something that wasn’t his to have.

  “I explained that then too,” he reminded her, beginning to feel uneasy.

  “Yeah, and the first day we met, you calmly discussed b
anging other women. The first morning I woke up in your bed, before you even kissed me, before I even realized to its fullest what you were to me, I still lost it just thinking of you with other women in that bed. What we have isn’t natural. What it does to me isn’t natural. Fuck, you can’t leave with me not knowing where you are without me eventually getting the pain back that I’d had for years. You pulling away from me doesn’t affect me like it would some normal biker bitch. It guts me.”

  “Jesus,” he muttered.

  “Yeah, Jesus,” she agreed. “And trust me, this does not make me happy. I’m not clingy. I don’t want to be clingy. Not one guy I’ve been with have I been—” She stopped on a sharp cry because he was squeezing her side uncontrollably, with all of his strength.

  All of it.

  He forced his hand to relax and did it miraculously before he snapped her ribs.

  “Fuck,” he whispered.

  “What was that?” she whispered back, her entire body stiff.

  “Sorry, pussycat,” he muttered.

  “What was that?” she bit out.

  He stroked the skin he’d no doubt just marked, saying, “You shouldn’t talk about bein’ with other guys.”

  Her eyes got big.

  Then she whispered, “You feel it too.”

  “Just don’t do that again.”

  “Oh my God, we’re so fucked,” she kept whispering. “We’re both gonna be clingy.”

  “This has to be something else,” he kept muttering.

  “What?” she cried, no longer whispering at all.

  But it came to him.

  “Added abilities.”

  “What?” she repeated.

  Abel focused on her. “I told you about my dreams. When I told you about all this saving the world shit, I told you that your dreams might be like ones Leah had and we had to be careful. I told you Sonia dreamed too.”

  “I remember.”

  “What I forgot to tell you is that Gregor said The Three had added abilities, like me being gifted in battle. But that was a for instance. As in, there were others. We just haven’t gotten around to hearing them yet.”

  “Keep going,” she urged.

  “So, you came to Serpentine Bay because you sensed me there. I sensed you in danger. You sensed the same with me. I don’t know, maybe we’re attuned to each other somehow. We lose that, like you not knowin’ where I am, and it causes pain. If I’m not with you and you know where I am, do you feel it come back?”

  She shook her head.

  “So we just need to be careful about letting each other know where we’re going.”

  “That doesn’t explain the hyper-jealousy and how I feel when you pull away from me, mentally or emotionally,” she pointed out.

  “The hyper-jealousy, yeah. Though, if we’re connected as in connected, it wouldn’t be a stretch to think that even the consideration of us connecting with someone else might strain that. But when I drift away in my thoughts, shutting you out, that jibes with you not knowing where I am.”

  “That is actually a stretch, Abel,” she remarked dubiously.

  “I’m not sure it is,” he returned.

  She continued to look dubious so he explained.

  “When you and me were talkin’ about whether we should leave our families behind or not, you had your quiet moment, I had mine. You gave me mine; I gave you yours. You knew where my head was at; I knew where yours was at. Did you get that feelin’ of me pullin’ away then?”

  The dubiousness started lifting when she answered, “No.”

  He nodded. “Right. No. Because you knew where my head was at, which makes sense with the rest.”

  “It kinda does,” she whispered.

  “So maybe this shit is more and it’ll develop as we’re together,” Abel continued. “We’ll get a lock on it, figure it out, maybe even learn to control it. But dreams that tell the future, me bein’ good at fighting, it seems whatever the fates have chosen to give us, if we figure out how to use them, they’re weapons. And if this shit gets any more extreme, me knowing you’re in danger and the same with me for you is a good thing.”

  “That’s the damned truth,” she mumbled.

  “So we tell each other where we’re gonna be if we’re gonna be apart, I have a care with not shutting you out of my thoughts, and you don’t ever mention bein’ with other guys again.”

  “Same with you with women,” she shot back, and he grinned.

  “Learned that lesson already, pussycat. Think that toothbrush marked me.”

  “Bullshit,” she retorted but did it fighting a smile.

  The mood shifting, he curved both arms around her and rolled to his back, pulling her on top of him.

  “Now we can get back to celebrating,” he announced.

  “Or we can check in on Chen and Jabber, then go back to planning our efforts to save the world,” she offered an alternate, not near as tempting suggestion.

  It was also one they weren’t doing.

  “We haven’t even been gone an hour.”

  “And I haven’t had but two sips of coffee and no breakfast.”

  “I’ve had two breakfasts and you didn’t have to do any work the last time.” He slid his hand into her hair and pulled her face closer to his. “Just gotta lay on your back for me to eat you.”

  She squirmed but said, “Saving the world is kinda important.”

  “And just lay on your back when I fuck you,” he continued like she didn’t speak.

  “Abel,” she snapped, but it was breathy.

  “Though, thinkin’ of bangin’ you against the headboard…not sure about that. That iron might hurt.”

  “Oh, just shut up and fuck me so we can get on with saving the world.”

  He grinned.

  She shook her head like he was a naughty boy she didn’t know what to do with.

  So he rolled her and played the naughty boy who knew exactly what to do with her.

  But he didn’t bang her against the headboard.

  Because the iron might hurt and he had years of drawing from her before he could make her heal.

  Years.

  * * * * *

  Callum

  Late that evening, Callum walked into the bedroom he shared with Sonia and saw his queen sitting in bed wearing another fucking nightgown and rubbing lotion in her hands.

  Her eyes were on him and he kept his on her as he closed the door behind him and watched her start to open her mouth.

  He beat her to it.

  “You tell me I told you so, I’ll turn you over my knee.”

  She shut her mouth in order to smile but then opened it again to speak.

  “Not sure that’s a deterrent, my handsome wolf.” He moved toward her as she kept going, “How was your run?”

  He sat down, his hip to hers in the bed, and answered as he leaned toward her to rest his weight in his hand at her other side. “It was an honor to be the first wolf to run with Abel Jin.”

  Her eyes got soft and she gave him another smile, this one sweet.

  “And his first run was with his king,” she said softly.

  “Yes,” Callum agreed. “He didn’t hide that he liked it either.” His mood shifted as his gaze went unfocused, thinking on this. “I can’t imagine a lifetime as a lone wolf. Running alone by choice, yes. Running alone because you knew no other like you, no.”

  “That part of his life is over,” she replied, still speaking softly and placing a hand on his chest, so his focus returned to her. “He has brothers now.”

  “Yes,” he repeated.

  “Did you and Lucien fill him in on all the rest?” she asked, and he nodded.

  “With Gregor and Yuri. Believe it or not, Yuri was best with him. He’s a proud vampire. Lucien’s confidence is a part of him. Gregor’s as well, in his way.” He shook his head and gave her the grave news. “I got the sense, little one, that Abel’s lived his whole life not thinking he’s simply an anomaly but that he was some kind of unnatural, loathsome beast.
”

  “Oh no,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” he told her. “So Yuri’s pride in who he is and all that comes with that was welcome.”

  “Yuri can be callous, but he isn’t entirely unfeeling,” she told him, and she would know. She’d lived with the vampire as her brother most of her life.

  That said, there came a time when Yuri didn’t want to be her brother but something else entirely. Unfortunately for Yuri but exceptionally fortunate for Callum, she was destined to be his queen.

  He nodded and went on, “There’s a great deal more for Abel to learn. While we were running, he was like you on your first run. Unable to communicate. He can control the transformation but can’t converse as wolf, though he was picking it up by the end. He’s a fast learner.”

  “Also like me.”

  He grinned at her and lifted his hand to curl around hers at his chest. “Like you, my queen.” She returned his grin and he kept going. “He’s excellent with a sword, but he still needs training. He should learn how to fight with his claws and teeth.”

  “Hopefully you’ll have time to teach him.”

  “We spoke of it and we’re starting tomorrow,” he shared.

  She tipped her head to the side. “And the rest?”

  “After we finished with Abel, he called Lilah in and they both now know it all—Leah’s absorption of Lucien’s abilities, sensing danger, being able to track and mark, speaking to his mind as he’s able to do with her; your affinity with wildlife; all of our dreams. We’ll be sitting down with Serena, Avery, Stephanie, Cristiano, Ryon, and Caleb tomorrow to discuss what we know about our adversaries and how to proceed.”

  “And does Lilah have any special abilities?” Sonia asked.

  Callum shook his head but said, “Abel does. He can control minds.”

  “Like Lucien?” she asked.

  “No,” he answered. “Not exactly. It’s more powerful. He doesn’t have to be in the same room or even the same building as his target to achieve his purpose. They also don’t remember it or know they’re being controlled. When Lucien uses his skill, his voice can be heard in their head and they know he’s doing it. Abel leaves barely a trace.”

  “Wow,” Sonia breathed, and he smiled.

  Then he shared, “So far Lilah’s only having dreams she can’t remember. However, their connection seems even stronger than ours or Leah and Lucien’s, but not all in good ways.”