Sage

by Talyn Scott

  Captiva Island, Florida

  “So let me get this straight,” Scarlett said, while dangling her sneaker-clad feet off the tiny deck. Her home had an amazing view of the gulf side. The sands of Captiva’s shore went right to her cottage, and she was only a few doors down from Oycher and his family.

  They’d walked over this afternoon, hand and hand after a day spent mostly sleeping off several days worth of traveling. Scarlett looked far better than when the plane had landed last night. But the Captiva sun would do that for anyone. “If I want to live forever with the likes of you two, I must become a vampire?”

  “You make it sound all sordid,” Roman said with a scrunch to his nose. “Might I remind you of that shower we took together this morning?” He puffed out his chest, preening and proud as the sun reflected in his golden eyes. “There’s more where that came from.”

  “I hope not.” She set down her empty plate of spaghetti and wiped her mouth. “You cracked the tiles when you lifted me against the shower wall.”

  “Nothing some reinforcement can’t fix,” Sage offered. If they could add on to this place, maybe gut the nineteen sixties’ plumbing, it would be perfect. “But you’re evading our proposal.”

  “I don’t see a ring.” She wiggled her fingers teasingly.

  “Usually, we give jeweled necklaces to our Brides, but we can do both if you’d like.” His heart starting kicking up at the light in her eyes. “You’re really considering it, aren’t you?”

  “Truthfully, it’s hard to think past what may happen to you two soon.” She held up her hand, so they’d let her finish. “But I could see myself turning into a vampire. I mean, my adoptive family is apparently vampire. And for a chance to have even a small chunk of eternity with you two? I’d risk just about anything.”

  “You would?” Roman sputtered, his jaw going slack.

  “Is it so hard to believe?” She jumped up from the deck and ran into Roman’s arms. He held Scarlett with one hand and pulled her closer with the other, kissing the hell out of her.

  “After all these years,” Roman said between kisses. “I’m a little shocked to say the least.”

  She giggled. “You can’t be more shocked than I am.”

  Sage leaned in and took her for a soul-claiming kiss, a prelude to their future. In that moment, he refused to think about anything other than the three being together, even having Younglings one day soon. They just had to get over a few major hurdles.

  Roman’s phone went off. He broke away from their combined embrace to look down at his screen. “Your brother has left a message, Scarlett.”

  “I tried to call him, earlier,” she said, reaching for his phone.

  But Roman shook his head. “I’d better talk to him first. Bestra’s heard everything that’s happened about Vun’s death and Edik exposing us. He’s trying to leave his duties, to get here and support us, but I don’t think that’s wise for his sake.”

  “Yeah,” Sage agreed “Bestra needs to stay as far away from us as possible. Tell him to keep Motka with him, since Motka’s already pissed off Edik one too many times.”

  Roman held up a placating hand when Scarlett’s eyes grew wide. “That’s nothing for you to worry over. Bestra can hold his own, Scarlett. Believe me.”

  Sage started rubbing her shoulders. “We could do something to take your mind off the tension. At least, I could give you a massage. A naked one, that is.”

  Roman gave Scarlett another kiss for good measure. “After I talk to Bestra, I’ll go feed. That way, you two can have some time alone before I come back and join you.”

  “You guys don’t get jealous of each other, ever,” she said with a mixture of relief and astonishment.

  “That’s a human’s way of thinking,” Roman said as he went down the steps to the beachside.

  Sage pulled Scarlett back around to face him, enjoying the way her hands instantly climbed up his chest. “Jealousy would imply we’re insecure within our relationship. I’ve never been surer about anything else in my life. And before you make the kind of a life-altering decision to become a vampire, you should be, too.”

  “Neither of you will let me out of your sight, and you have guards everywhere,” she pointed out. “What would you do, if I said no? What if I decided I wanted to live and die a human.”

  The thought of watching her die one day tore Sage up. “I can’t pretend I’m human, so I’ll admit that I wouldn’t tolerate you with another male other than Roman. But I wouldn’t force you to change. Ever. And neither would Roman.”

  Her answering smile was blinding. “You’d watch me grow old?”

  “If that was the only way to be with you, then yeah.”

  She tucked a finger in the waistband of his jeans and yanked. “Come here, I want to get started on our honeymoon early.”

  His cock turned into a kickstand. “You’re really going to do it?”

  “Oh, yes, but first thing’s first.”

  Chapter 16

  “Are you absolutely sure about this?”

  “Absolutely, absolutely,” Scarlett said, watching Sage’s sexy mouth tip up at the corners. He was so pretty, her green-eyed vampire, that it made her heart ache sometimes just to look at him.

  His chin dipped down as he looked beneath his brow, a predatory look that Scarlett was beginning to associate with two things. And since she knew he would never hurt her, this meant he was so horny that he was unraveling in front of her.

  She reached over and ran a slow hand down the front of his fly, easing her fingers inside to tug at the zipper. “Want a little pre celebration for our impending nuptials?”

  “You,” he said as he moved in fluid, blurring, vampiric speed and completely divesting Scarlett of her clothing, “should never toy with a vampire.”

  She glanced down at her naked self. He’d even removed her socks and shoes. “I like the way you move,” she challenged, “can you move that way inside me?”

  “After you’re a vampiress.” His fangs lowered. “Now, though, I’m going to bite you, and it won’t be the same way as when I mist you.”

  “I think it’s about time,” she agreed, “don’t you?”

  With a sudden fist in her hair, he pulled so tight to her scalp that her clit tingled in response. Sage brought her head back as he lowered his face, and pressed his lips to her mouth. His tongue slid over hers, the ball of his piecing rolling in a slow glide that she felt all the way to her toes. He went back and forth, twirling and retreating, until her hands were against his chest, twisting and yanking at his clothes.

  “Take them off,” she demanded when he released her from the near savagery of his kiss.

  “Anything,” he said, in the rasping hiss around his fangs.

  In one fluid movement he was in front of her with that warrior’s body. His muscles sculptured under golden velvet skin. He had no hair on his chest, apart from a thin trail that led beneath his navel to the top of his cock. And it was cropped nice and short, a clean look that accented the glorious erection standing straight out and poking her in the stomach.

  She reached out and toyed with his circlet, the impressive piercing all Vojaks worth their salt got. And she couldn’t believe how that thing felt inside of her. In fact, her pussy was weeping at the thought of having it again.

  But she had an idea. “You think I could take you,” she stopped just long enough to toy with him, to yank him by the very cock she wanted to suck and fuck, all the way to the bed.

  He fell on her, but easily caught his weight with his palms on either side of her face. “Where?” he asked, though he must have read the look of curiosity and need in her eyes.

  “You know.”

  “I think you should say it, in case we’re thinking two different things.”

  Oh, how he was toying with her now! A flush burned her cheeks, clear over the bridge of her noise, causing Sage to reach down and kiss it with his beautiful mouth. “I’m waiting.” He emphasized by circling his hips and grinding his circlet
against the palm of her hand.

  She bit on her lip a couple of times to shore up her courage. “Since we’re entering a relationship where we want to be together simultaneously,” she said, letting the thought hang while stopping to feel up his chest a moment. How could see resist?

  He watched her for a second, one of his nipples pebbling around a small piercing she hadn’t ever noticed. “Go on,” he insisted sternly.

  “I thought I could try anal again.” Because she’d wanted to do it the first time, only the guy had gotten a little wild. And had bit her on the shoulder… Scarlett stopped a moment, wondering at that. Maybe he wasn’t human, her one-time lover. Maybe he’d answered nature’s primitive call when she’d opened her body to him.

  “Are you sure?” He asked, suddenly cupping her face. “You don’t look so sure of it right now. In fact, I think I lost you for a minute.”

  “You haven’t lost me,” she reached down and fondled his heavy balls, loving the way the thin silky skin felt different from his cock. And the way they pounded on her while he fucked her hard and deep wasn’t so bad either. “I’m right here waiting.”

  “So you had a bad experience before?”

  “I’ll say.”

  “I can lube your pretty ass with my tongue and your arousal. It’s really quite easy, considering the way you respond to your vampire,” he said with a lazy shrug, but his eyes gave him away.

  His Vojak’s control was truly slipping now.

  Could she take him this way, his body coiled and loaded? “Sage?”

  “Don’t be frightened.” His eyes flicked up and down her body in an ocular claiming. Then he pushed his broad shoulders between her thighs and lifted his forefinger to circle her clit, staring at her pussy until she felt her sex grow wetter.

  “Sage.”

  He removed the tip of his finger and blew on her damp sex. That simple movement jolted her in the same way as a penetrating thrust. She bucked wildly but he easily caught her lifted hips.

  “I’m still too sensitive from the shower sex.”

  “It’s a good thing I’ll be loving your luscious ass then.” Gently, Sage curled his middle finger inside the hot clasp of her sex, using his thumb to circle the hood of her clit. “Right now, I’m just stoking your need.” With his stroking, he pushed her close to the edge, fueling her craving just as he promised.

  Before she knew what was happening, Sage flipped her over, carefully pushing her knees beneath her stomach, though keeping her thighs pressed together. With the palms of his hands, he spread her cheeks wide. “Stop clenching your ass, Scarlett.” He ran his tongue straight down her back crevice. “I’m not having it.”

  Sage kissed her anus, flicking his tongue inside her inner ring. And unlike the past try with her mysterious partner, this time, Scarlett was turned on to the point of madness. “I’m going to come!”

  Those tight muscles clamped down on his tongue. “Not until I’m inside you,” he demanded against her wet flesh.

  “It’s impossible to hold it,” she pleaded.

  Sage dragged a finger through her lower lips, while thrusting his rough tongue in and out of her bottom. He licked and nipped, running his fangs across each globe as he dragged the juice from her sex up to coat her back hole.

  He spread the wetness with an expert hand, then started entering her backside with a simple push of two fingers.

  “Use only one.”

  “You are part werewolf. You stretch easier than human females, Scarlett.” He plunged in and out, giving her more with every glide and corresponding retreat. “Give your body a chance to take what I’m doing, Nevesta.”

  He kept at her buttocks, gliding his fangs over her globes. “I’m going to graze you now, give you a little bit of my endorphins. It’s only a small amount,” he explained as she started groaning, gyrating her hips to his delving fingers. “Because I want you mindless with me, not entirely from my bite.”

  A prick of pain on the back of her thigh brought a white-hot rush beneath her skin. “Oooh.” It blossomed, spreading outward in all directions. Her ass started to widen, relaxing against his fingers, while his tongue stroked that ball over her prickling skin.

  “That’s it,” Sage praised, adding another finger. “You should see how pretty you look back here, Nevesta, taking three thick fingers.” He gripped his cock at the base, stroked a couple of times, and then squeezed his head with a fierce hiss.

  “Are you okay,” she asked as the rush spread down her legs, curling her toes.

  “Trying not to come,” he admitted, releasing himself and bracing his hand on her thigh. “My body also reacts to you like no other female. We were made for each other. As I keep saying, aligned by fate.”

  Without letting up on his finger-stroking, Sage scraped his fangs over her opposite thigh, over the outer edge, until he reached the back of her knee. A sweltering hiss hit her skin as he bit down, this time more forcefully.

  “Oh!”

  “Yes, Scarlett,” he whispered as he withdrew his fingers from the confines of her ass, her body gripping him frantically to come back. The burning kiss of his bite bouncing from nerve ending to never ending, propelling her higher as he spread her legs apart. “I want to bite you when I fuck you.” His chest came over her back. “I’m going to mark you, finally.”

  “Anything,” she moaned, writhing beneath his great weight. “Yes.”

  “My bite will burn-so-good the same way my cock will, when I work it in your perfect ass inch by claiming inch, taking your complete submission.” After pressing her torso back down, he tilted her hips, and brought the tip of his erection to her widened back hole. “But then that all consuming fire will turn to burning passion, and your body will experience a far different orgasm than any other.”

  Her pussy clenched from emptiness. “Sage, I think I want you to hurry.” Her nipples pebbled as Sage pressed forward, separating her cheeks with his thick cock, invading her tight ring with his slick, wide head.

  “I’m going to release my claws, Nevesta.”

  She could barely hear over what she was feeling, her body shutting out everything except giving herself to him in the most submissive way.

  And it felt good, surprisingly powerful in its own right.

  Out of nowhere her pussy spasmed, building from the way Sage’s length surged in her ass. “I can feel everything,” Scarlett breathed. “All your thick veins, and that circlet,” she stopped for a shuddering breath, second-guessing her decision, “it’ll be too rough.”

  After gliding the backs of his claws down her back and across the curvature of her globes, he purred, “Rough in a very good way, you will relax and enjoy what I give you.”

  The circlet passed through as Sage pushed himself inside her, his heavy balls getting close enough to smack her bottom. “You look so pretty taking my cock in your ass. With every inch I bury,” he stopped a moment, gripping her hips but staying mindful of his claws, “you clench so tightly on me. Wicked female, I may blow before my first complete stroke.”

  He brought his hand between Scarlett’s legs as he surged deep and long. A stream of profanities in English, and also in his mother tongue, tore out of his mouth, before hisses of sheer pleasure filled the room.

  “You are crushing me, Nevesta, rippling around me.” He swiveled his hips, trying to loosen her up. “So this is going to happen as I predicted: too damn fast.” He used the backs of two claws to pinch her clit, the sensation of cool, glossy hardness spinning her into release.

  “Ah!” Scarlett’s body shivered, her sex convulsing on nothing, the odd emptiness reverberated into her ass. Yes, this was a whole different orgasm. An awesome one, she thought as he pumped her harder, faster, with his mouth against her ear whispering praises in that language she didn’t understand.

  Scarlett cried out at the height of her pleasure, just as he surged all the way to the top and stayed, spraying his release deep inside her.

  He brought his mouth down on the tendon between her neck a
nd shoulder, and nailed her with a near brutal bite of claiming.

  “Oh!” She started to freak out, pushing up while he was biting down.

  He growled at her, shaking his mouth with his fangs still buried deep in her shoulder, his warrior’s body tightening all around hers. Then just when she thought fear of being his prey would consume her, a hot wash of lust pulsated though her veins.

  “Sage,” she said on a slow exhale, undulating her hips to get him moving again.

  And suddenly she didn’t feel like prey at all.

  But like his, completely.

  In her next sighing breath, Sage completely disengaged from her body and dressed her in that alarming vampire speed.

  “What is it?” She gasped when he let her go to sit on the edge of the bed. Even her shoes were on.

  Sage didn't answer, just dressed himself in the same blurring speed. He was almost finished when the door flew open and two winged vampires burst through the room.

  “We come for you in the name of Prince Volos.”

  “No!” Scarlett jumped up, charging at them. But Sage drew her back easily.

  “You are scheduled for execution at sunrise, Vojak.”

  All the air was sucked out of the room. “Execution?” Scarlett asked in a small voice. “At sunrise!”

  “Please, get her out of here,” Sage said to someone who was standing behind what must be the Gryphs he told her about. Although they were similar to the Lovci, she could definitely see a difference.

  When Sage released her again, something coiled up inside of Scarlett and she lashed out at the nearest Gryph, striking him across the edge of his wing. Only because she couldn’t get to his face.

  With great calmness, the Gryph placed a hand on her shoulder, then Scarlett couldn't seem to move after that. Sage was screaming something in the background and then she saw Roman was also cuffed on the deck, both were hustled from the house while she stood speechless and motionless.

  And still she stood, as the Gryph leaned to get in her face. “I could take you in for offending an officer of court, mixed blood.”