Fallen University Complete Series

by Callie Rose

  Fuck this. I’m not letting any of my men get hurt.

  Persuasion. I thought the word, trying to summon my power, but I couldn’t make the controlled, soothing feeling rise. Persuasion, damn it. Come on, work with me here!

  It flickered this time, almost rising up to where I could grasp it, but it was shoved away by a flash of terror from Jayce.

  I felt the emotion radiate from him like a bomb’s blast.

  “We got company!”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The men’s attention shifted away from Kai as three more of those monstrous vamps roared into the little hollow. It was just enough for me to break free of the emotional and mental paralysis and hurl myself at my feral mate, taking him completely by surprise.

  He grunted as I slammed into him, knocking him onto his back. Behind me, Kingston had taken flight and was busy lighting the newcomers on fire.

  “Stakes! We need stakes!”

  Jayce’s voice was panicked, and it was distracting. His emotions were calling to me so strongly it was almost impossible to think of anything else. I shoved my last shred of calm at him as Kai recovered and lunged at me. I backed away, picked up a heavy branch, and swung it at his gut. He caught it and shoved it back at me with an animalistic snarl.

  “Kai!” I screamed, persuasion forgotten for the moment. “Look at me! I know you’re still in there. Stop this, right now.”

  He ripped the branch out of my hands and broke it in two, then charged at me again. He’d somehow managed to get between me and the rest of the guys, and as I dodged him again and again he pushed me deeper into the woods.

  Fear flickered through me at the realization. I was on my own, isolated out here with no backup. But it was also easier to focus without my men’s confused reactions to Kai’s transformation swirling in my mind.

  Refocusing, I reached down into myself, calling on my power.

  Persuasion. There it is. “Kai, you want to be nice to me.”

  Whatever the feral magic was doing to him, its effect was strong. Not reacting to my words at all, he snarled and swiped at me. I jumped backward, and as I landed, my heel slipped over the lip of a sharp decline. I pinwheeled my arms, throwing my weight forward, but it was too late. I crashed down the hill, smashing through bushes sharp as glass and barely avoiding the gnarled trunks of massive trees. Kai was coming down after me on all fours, leaping down the hill as easily as if it were flat ground.

  I rolled to a stop on my back, stunned and breathless, aching from head to toe. Heart pounding, I tried to scramble to my feet, but before I could, he pounced on me, pinning me to the ground.

  My battered face reflected back at me in his sharp, slitted eyes. I was bleeding from a thousand tiny cuts. He lowered his head and sniffed my neck like a dog, then lapped at the blood leaking from my cheek. It would have been hot if I hadn’t known that he just wanted to eat me for lunch, and not in the fun way.

  Goddamn it. He’s going to kill me. And he won’t even realize it’s me.

  I didn’t know what possessed me to do it, but as he moved his head toward my other cheek, I turned my face and kissed him.

  It was nothing big. Just a quick peck on his mouth, a small, desperate gesture. Maybe I was just hoping to claim one more little piece of him before my life was extinguished, to remind myself of our bond while I still could.

  But in the millisecond after I did it, Kai’s expression changed.

  A flash of confusion passed over his features.

  Hope beat through my blood even as he snarled and darted for my neck. I decked him, snapping his head back, and took advantage of the shift in his weight to shove him off of me. I rolled over on top of him, pinning his clawed hands between our bodies. He snapped at my face, and I yanked my head back just in time to avoid getting my nose bitten off.

  As his teeth closed on empty air, I leaned in quickly and kissed him again.

  “There you are,” I breathed as that same confusion flashed across his face again. “You don’t want to do this. The real you doesn’t. Come on, Kai, come back to me.”

  I moved to kiss him again, but he snarled, rolling over on top of me again. One of my hands slipped free, and I balled it into a fist in his hair, forcing his mouth to mine and kissing him again.

  This time I didn’t let go.

  I wrapped my legs around his waist and pinned his body against mine. He struggled, fighting himself just as much as he was fighting me, confused and disoriented. But I knew it would work. It had to. I made a little sound of pleasure and pressed my hips against his.

  He kissed me back. The little swell of hope inside my chest rose to a vibrating peak as his tongue slid between his shimmering fangs to meet mine. He was breathing too fast, too hard. He was still fighting, half-possessed by the feral vamp blood.

  I ran my hands over his body, exuding as much raw sexuality as I possibly could, mixed with a healthy helping of genuine affection.

  As much as he infuriated me, I cared for him.

  He was mine, and I needed him to keep being mine.

  I pushed all of those feelings at him through my touch and felt the animal inside of him begin to weaken. Panting, he groped at me, seemingly unsure whether he wanted to caress my breasts or rip my heart out. I put my hand on his and guided him to do the former, moaning against his lips as he touched me.

  His touch wasn’t gentle, but I didn’t need it to be. Sparks lit inside me as he squeezed my breasts, his palms brushing against my nipples and making them tighten into hard peaks. Kai must’ve liked that, because he made a rough growling sound, kissing me again as his bruising touch moved over my body.

  I had pressed my lips to his in an unconscious, irrational attempt to bring him back to me, to remind him of who he was. But as the darkness inside of Kai receded, the original reasons for our kiss faded into the background of my lust-dazed brain. My lips devoured his, soaking up the wild, unrestrained passion he was pouring into me.

  One of my hands slipped between us, brushing against his hardening cock, and he reared back, wrenching his mouth away from mine and snarling like an animal. But the sound didn’t frighten me—it was different than his previous growls. I palmed his cock through his pants, rubbing my hand firmly up and down the hard length, and he stiffened and jerked again.

  We grappled on the ground, wrestling for control of our kiss, groping and pinning each other, sliding our hands underneath clothes and nipping with lips and teeth. When we rolled onto a soft patch of moss, we finally stopped moving. Our limbs twined together as our kiss deepened, becoming a little less violent but no less passionate.

  Kai tugged at the hem of my tunic, and I raised my arms to allow him to pull it off. It was like the first domino falling, and as soon as the slightly warm air hit my bare breasts, we were tearing at the rest of each other’s clothing, pulling and tangling fabric in our haste to remove it all.

  This had to rank high in the top five most inappropriate places I had ever wanted to have sex.

  But oh man, did I.

  Liquid heat poured through my veins, spurring me on as I hooked a hand around the back of Kai’s neck and kissed him like I was trying to fuse our lips together.

  Kai was rock hard already. His cock pressed into my stomach as we kissed, and then he drew back, shifting his position a little to line himself up with my entrance.

  Just before he could thrust inside, I wedged a hand between our bodies, wrapping my fingers around him. He thrust into my hand instead of my pussy and let out a grunt of frustration as he realized what I’d done. He pulsed his hips several more times, straining to get inside me. Every time he thrust, my hand stroked him hard, and I could see him trying not to respond to it, trying to hold out until he was inside me.

  It couldn’t have been easy though. My grip on him was tight, and as he thrust harder, I jerked him off even as I stopped him from sinking into me.

  “Piper,” he gritted out, his vampiric eyes still flashing with some of the manic energy I’d seen in them earlie
r. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “I’m not having sex with you,” I panted back, even as my pussy called me an idiot and threatened to go on strike.

  But I knew I’d regret it if I did this wrong. I cared about Kai, and I didn’t want to hurt him, not even to satisfy the desperate craving that lived inside me.

  “What are you talking about?” He shook his head, breathing hard as he thrust into my hand again, his cock hot and thick in my grip.

  “No sex. Not unless you can look me in the eyes and tell me you know what it means.” I stared into his eyes, my heart nearly cracking open as I gave him an out from something I wanted with my whole body. “You know what it will do to the bond, Kai.”

  My body was practically vibrating with the need to have him inside me, but I wouldn’t—couldn’t—do it while he was out of his mind, his brain still warped by the feral vamp blood that had infected his system. That wasn’t what I wanted, and I knew it wasn’t what he would want either. I wouldn’t take advantage of him like that.

  I wanted everything that happened between us to be as real as possible. It was impossible to avoid the magical interference of the bonds we shared, but I could at least avoid complicating things even more by fucking Kai while he was out of his right mind.

  The man above me stopped moving for a moment. His thrusts against my hand paused, and he stared down at me, gazing intently into my eyes. One of his hands reached up to caress the side of my face, cupping my cheek as his thumb traced the line of my jaw, a look almost like worship crossing his features.

  “Piper,” he murmured. “I know what this means. I want it. I want you.”

  Hope and arousal surged in my chest, but I did my best to tamp them both down as I narrowed my eyes at him, my gaze tracking over every little nuance of his expression.

  Searching for the lie.

  Searching for the infection in his mind.

  But his eyes were clear, glittering with keen intelligence and an emotion I couldn’t name.

  Holy shit. He’s not high. The feral vamp blood is all gone. This is just Kai.

  I swallowed, my throat tightening. “But what about—”

  “I want you.”

  He cut me off, his words so full of strength and conviction that I couldn’t even muster up a real argument. My heart thudded against my ribs as if it was straining toward him, desperate to get as close to him as possible.

  “You have me, Kai,” I whispered. “Always.”

  My grip on his cock loosened, and he didn’t hesitate, using the newfound freedom of motion to press inside me. He moved slowly, like he was trying to draw the moment out, to prolong the sweet satisfaction just a little while longer. His cock was long and thick, and when he bottomed out inside me, we both let out soft groans of satisfaction.

  Something monumental clicked into place inside me, like a missing piece of a puzzle had been returned to its rightful place.

  Kai was here. He was with me, inside me.

  Despite his months of doubts and fears, his anger and resistance, despite the evil of the underworld that had tried to rip him away from me, he was here.

  “I’ve waited so long for this,” he murmured, dropping his face to breathe hard against my neck. “Too fucking long.”

  Then he moved so quickly all I could do was hang on. In a blur, he wrapped his arms around me and hauled me upright, keeping himself buried inside me as he sat back on his heels. Our chests were pressed flush together, and my arms tightened around his neck as I undulated my hips against him, rising up and sinking down slowly, milking his cock as I rode him.

  Everything else around us—the dangers of the underworld, the red sun burning in the sky, the noises and scents on the air—faded away, replaced only by the feel of Kai’s hard length inside me, his arms around me, and his bronze skin against mine.

  We watched each other as we fucked, and I was sure the look of wonder on his face was mirrored on mine. I almost couldn’t believe this was happening, but I shoved away the panic that it might be nothing more than a vivid dream or a perfect hallucination, focusing on my joy rather than my fear. When I came around Kai’s cock, he palmed the back of my head and kissed me hard, nicking my lips and tongue with his sharp teeth and lapping at the blood, drinking me in even as the wounds healed over and over again.

  Then he cupped my chin in his hands, drawing back to look at me. I felt boneless and sated, but already, my body was beginning to clamor for more. I would need so much more of this man before I was done.

  As if he’d read my thoughts, the sinfully gorgeous vampire flipped me onto my back again. Then he lifted both my legs, pinning them to his shoulders as he drove into me hard and fast. My breasts bounced from the heavy thrusts, and my cry echoed in the warm air, a sound of perfect ecstasy in a place of so much pain.

  “I have you,” he murmured roughly, and it seemed as though the words themselves pushed him over the edge. His face contorted, and he slammed into me one last time, his cum bathing my insides as he throbbed inside me.

  My body lit up with power even as I came again, tossing my head back and forth and sobbing out his name, rendered completely helpless by the sensations crashing through me. With his cock still buried inside me, his fingers found my clit, wrenching another orgasm out of me and turning his name on my lips into inarticulate moans as I lost the ability to speak entirely.

  A lazy smirk spread across his face, sinful and triumphant and full of hunger.

  He was back. All of him.

  Finally, when we were both as wrung out as wet rags, he withdrew from me and collapsed to the mossy earth, pulling me into his body as we caught our breath.

  It was silent for the several long moments, and as we lay together on the patch of spongy purple moss, I traced a circle around the mark on his torso—a twin to one of the marks on the back of my neck.

  It had taken forever, but he was finally fully bonded to me. Love might come later, or it might never come at all, but the resentment and resistance he had felt toward our dual bonds seemed to have faded.

  Drifting in the afterglow, I felt around for the others. They were all safe. Sated, but not in the same way I was. They’d killed the monsters and were basking in the afterglow of battle. I couldn’t feel worry rattling around inside them, so I was sure they could tell I was safe and alive, even if they couldn’t see me.

  I considered sending an emotional flare up for them but decided to wait.

  Just one more minute. I just need one more minute with my vamp.

  I propped myself up on my elbow and touched Kai’s face, drinking him in. His eyes were back to their human shape and color, and his teeth had receded. He looked—I didn’t want to say happy, really, because I didn’t know if he was fully capable of happiness at this point—but he looked calm in a way I had never seen him before. The taut wire of tension and misery inside him had dissolved.

  “Piper,” he murmured, my name sounding almost like a prayer.

  Then he turned his head to kiss my palm and sighed contentedly.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “They definitely went this way.”

  “Piper! Can you hear me?”

  I roused myself from my hazy half-sleep and sat up, still keeping as much of my body touching Kai’s as I could. After spending so long craving him, I didn’t want to miss a moment of this.

  “Over here,” I called.

  Kai sat up too and wrapped his arms around me, kissing my shoulder. Smiling like an idiot, I leaned into his embrace just as the other three crashed through the underbrush around us. They were a little scraped up and carried a few bruises, but overall they looked okay. A wave of relief washed over me at the sight. I’d been able to tell through our bond that none of them were badly injured, but seeing it with my own eyes made me feel better.

  “There you are! I was worried.” Jayce rushed over to where Kai and I sat on the ground. He pulled me into a tight hug as Kingston and Xero stopped at the edge of the small clearing and stared.

>   “And you!” Jayce grabbed Kai’s head and looked into his eyes, beaming. “You’re you!”

  “Yeah.” Kai’s lips twitched with a suppressed grin.

  Jayce caught us both up in a big bear hug and squeezed, totally unbothered by our nakedness. “Ugh, I’m so glad I don’t have to kill you!”

  “Hold on a second.” Kingston stepped forward. “Piper? Are you really okay?”

  He narrowed his eyes at me, as if he thought I might be under some kind of feral vampire thrall or something. Xero had already taken the situation in and was looking away, fighting a smile.

  “Yup. I’m better than I’ve been in a very, very long time.” My chest seemed to swell as I said the words, my heart expanding so much it could hardly be contained.

  Suspicion deepened in the dragon shifter’s expression, and he came forward, practically ignoring Kai’s existence to brush the hair out of my face. He gazed deeply into my eyes as his hands roamed the soft curves of my body, and I could feel the exact moment when the intention behind his touch changed. The fingertips grazing my nipples and trailing over my breasts and stomach were no longer searching for injuries.

  “Well.” He cleared his throat, his voice husky. “You look good.”

  “Welcome to the party, Kai,” Xero said with a grin. “Took you long enough.”

  Jayce was still glued to my side, and Kingston had moved even closer. I met Xero’s eyes, catching a glint of happiness and something almost like pride in his dark irises. He loved me, and I had a feeling that seeing me like this, relaxed and happy in the afterglow with Kai, made Xero glad on a level I almost couldn’t comprehend. As if my happiness infused him with a deep happiness too.