A Mermaid's Ransom (34 page)

Spread open the way she was with no friction, the arousal built to unbearable heights, but he had no mercy for her now. He stayed away from her throbbing, soaked sex, the jutting points of her nipples, but gave in-depth attention to every other part of her, until she was crying out the way she would in orgasm, without the orgasm. He didn't respond to her pleas, using her as he desired, as if she was a slave in truth to whom he owed nothing, and she owed him total obedience. She fought the restraints when it became unbearable, but he continued teasing her with his mouth.

"Please, Dante . . ." Opening her eyes at a touch of coolness, the powder-fresh smell of her own room, she realized she
was
on her own bed now, but tied down like the vision into which he'd propelled her. He'd used belts and scarves from her closets. Looking down her body, she saw him back at her inner thigh, licking away drops of blood from the area he'd just bitten. Not even a hair on his perfect head touched her needy, pulsing sex. And he was still fully clothed, except for the open shirt.

He rose as her eyes opened, and left her in the room alone. She barely had time to wonder where he'd gone when he was back, bearing the casserole she'd left on the stove. Coming to the head of the bed, he sat on the edge of it and used two fingers to dig into the tightly packed vegetables and pasta. "You will eat your dinner now," he said.

She figured he'd lost his mind, because her body could care less about food. It wanted him. But at his searing expression, she parted her lips, and he fed her from his fingers. Her body was trembling, sweating, and she was making little whimpers in her throat. What had just happened? Somehow, he'd used that third mark in a way she hadn't expected, and there'd been nowhere for her to hide from him. It had been terrifying, yet at the same time, at some level, she knew it wouldn't have been possible to go that deep that fast, without her willingness to take him into all those dark rooms. Whether he wanted to deny it or not, she
had
given him her heart, everything she was.

He met her gaze, but continued to make her eat. The act of giving it to her from his fingers, making her submit to his will, made her even wetter and needier. Her sex was contracting so much on its own she wondered that she didn't come, just from that motion.

"You will not come until I say you can."

"But I'm not yours. You implied as much. You'd give me away, so that means I can choose anyone to replace you."

Perhaps it was the frustration of her body that made her crazy enough to keep taunting him. She might not hold the reins on the third mark, but with her gift, she knew that she could reach him at the most visceral level, the place he didn't even understand himself.

In answer, he made her eat ten more bites, and each one was harder to swallow than the last. Because between those bites, he reached down and fondled her breast, or teased her clit. Oh-so-briefly, but each time it sent a spasm of reaction through her, such that she bucked and cried out. When she subsided with tiny jerks, he'd feed her another mouthful, until she couldn't handle it anymore. On bite eleven, after he pushed the casserole into her mouth and withdrew, so much like the provocative sexual slide of his digit into another kind of wetness, she snarled and spat the mouthful of food at him. It hit his chest and face.

He tossed the plate aside. Before it hit the floor and shattered, he'd opened the jeans and straddled her face, feeding his cock between her lips. She took him willingly, but he pushed hard and deep, and there was a lot of him. She gagged.

Relax your throat, Alexis. I do not intend to show you any mercy.

She forced herself to focus on that, to get past the initial panic, and yet he was still a great deal to take, particularly as he was ramming himself into her wet mouth, holding on to the headboard, his hips pumping swiftly so she felt the rhythm of his denim-clad taut buttocks against her chest, her arms caged by the columns of his thighs.

He took a long while, so that she assumed his intention was more punishment than his own pleasure. Her jaw ached and tears of stress ran down her cheeks, and her cunt continued to weep and throb in the open air. She was making pure animal sounds in her throat, vibrating against him. Her mind shut down, so she stopped thinking about the why or how anymore. She was just obeying, seeking to serve his pleasure until he'd grant her own.

There was a hard pulse against her tongue and she redoubled her suckling efforts, determined to have him come in her mouth, to feel him release, but he had other plans. On that precipice, so close she felt his seed leak out on her tongue, he pulled free, showing her glazed, tear-filled eyes he was even more enormous than when he'd gone in.

He released her ankles and one of her wrists, but before she could think about how to take advantage of her freedom, he'd flipped her over, brought her up on her knees, her forehead pressed to the bed. He used his knee to knock hers further apart, and then he was fingering her sex, collecting fluids on his fingers so she shuddered even more. Then he was at the rim of her backside, probing there, using that fluid to slip into the opening she'd never thought of for sex. A cold apprehension knotted in her stomach, but he gave her no time for that.

He sank a finger in deep, and she made a noise at the unfamiliar sensation, her thighs quivering. Earlier today, in a far different mood, he'd told her he was going to go slow tonight, savor everything. While she hadn't pictured exactly this, there was no doubt savoring had occurred. She was afraid she might die if she couldn't come soon.

"When will you come, Alexis?" His voice was harsh, guttural.

She strained to pull her ragged thoughts together. "When you say I can."

"Good." The broad head of that enormous cock was at her rear opening, so she braced herself, but he wouldn't give her that opportunity. His fingers went below, took hold of her clit and began to massage. She was so close, and yet he'd said she had to hold back. She screamed in frustration, trying not to move against him, and in one smooth stroke, he'd broken through her anal muscles and sunk himself deep.

Holy Goddess, he'd split her in two. She wondered if the collar was activating, burning his flesh, because the pain was incredible. However, mixed as it was with the arousal of her body, she suspected the protection spell wouldn't interpret his action as an attack. She was crying out, her body shuddering at this invasion, when he began to move, taking away his fingers so there was no possibility of her coming, just him slapping against her backside, bringing pain as she continued to burn inside. Tiny, bleating pleas came from her lips, but he was having none of it.

Mine. You obey me, submit to my pleasure. You will never taunt me like this again.

I will if you decide I'm better off without you. I'll . . . fuck everything that moves, complete strangers. I'll give my heart to someone who's the total opposite of you, who will treat me so much better, I'll never even think about you.

He snarled again, renewed his assault, so she yelped. Oh, God, this hurt.
Please, Dante, it hurts so badly, please stop . . . please.

Abruptly he did, pulling out slow, but every movement of his body hurt the tissues, so tears were running down her face, making her sniffle and try to hide it by burying her face in the covers. Then his hands were on her, turning her, leaving the one arm tethered. He retied the other and her ankles again as that raw channel throbbed and her heart ached. She curled her fingers, needing to touch, but she made herself look into his face, show him he hadn't broken her resolve, even as she'd surrendered to his will.

As he stood at the footboard looking at her spread that way for him, she couldn't help but tremble more. All she wanted to do was love him, heal him. Be his. She didn't care how long it took for him to feel the same way. And she wouldn't consider it might not ever happen. The Goddess she knew had never been that cruel.

His mouth tightened, his eyes darkening further. At length, he moved back onto the bed, lying down upon her. Just that intimate contact made her cry out. He brushed her lips with his and, with a sinuous move of his hips, he slid his cock slowly, slowly, into her sex.

Though she wasn't sexually experienced, she'd been exposed enough to those who were to know that it might not be hygienic for him to go from that intimate rear opening to this needy one. But she'd always been immune to most infections, and she doubted Dante had ever had to consider the matter. And to hell with it, she didn't want to break this moment, no matter the consequences.

He stopped when he was in to the hilt, holding fast against her, his hands cradling her face so they were staring at one another.

"I don't deserve you, Alexis," he murmured. "You proving I'm a savage beast does nothing."

"I want you," she said, voice shaking. "I don't care what or who you are. I know you're mine. I knew it in that first dream." The pain in her backside was not the true pain, but what he had roiling in her gut. "You hurt me, you hurt yourself."

His thumb brushed her mouth, catching her tears on his fingers. "I'm sorry."

"I am, too. But you made me mad."

"And who is this blond lover of yours, this one you knew intimately enough to picture him in such detail in your mind?" There was violence simmering in Dante's eyes again, and Alexis managed to feel a tired flicker of amusement.

"An actor named Leonardo DiCaprio. He's a movie star. I don't know him personally, but I loved the character he played in this one movie, when he was a diamond smuggler in Africa. He had this really sexy accent. I've watched it a lot." She shuddered once again, and her muscles contracted on him. "I'd really like to come for you," she whispered. "I'm dying here."

"Then come for me, sweet Alexis." He began to move, slow, sure strokes that caught her on fire and turned her into a conflagration in a matter of seconds. When Alexis arched against him, the orgasm was as hard and ruthless as he was, wringing her out, making her buck for long seconds against his body, screaming. The sensation continued as he wrapped her hair in his fists, holding his jaw against her temple as he thrust into her with determination, releasing at last as well.

It made her take even longer to come down, the merciless aftershocks working her against him in spasms. He stroked her throughout all of them. Not until she was completely drained did he free her arms. When he lay down upon her, she buried her face in his neck, holding him tightly.

Don't leave me.

Dante closed his eyes against her hair. He didn't answer, but he did slide his arms under her and hold her tighter. He wondered if the feeling he was feeling now would split him in half, without him ever knowing what to call it. Or why her words sent shooting pain through every level of his soul.

Twenty-seven

THEY watched a couple movies that night, though he had an amusing aversion to seeing the movie she'd referenced with Leonardo DiCaprio. She flipped channels, showing him a range of offerings, comedy, drama, horror and sci-fi fantasy. Fortunately there were no vampire flicks, since she suspected the way the human world perceived vampires might need to wait for another day. After showing him how to use the remote, she fell asleep with her head on his thigh, her body and mind exhausted by their day together. As she drifted toward sleep, her lips curved when he began to stroke her hair.

Her dreams were not so pleasant, however. An apprehensive feeling took root, attended by a shadowy creature with leathery wings that might be a Dark One but wasn't. What made her most afraid was knowing that it wasn't evil, that its purpose was something undeniable . . . inevitable. She couldn't find Dante, but she knew he was there. No one would help her find him, though. Her father, Marcellus, David, even Mina and Anna, were all statues in a barren garden, a lonely wind whistling between them, coming from a landscape of fire and ice. Her pleas to them were met with dead stares, a lack of movement or reaction. There were no feelings. She was in a place where she could feel . . . nothing.

When she tried to leave, they closed ranks and boxed her in. Desperation rose, for Dante needed her now. She could sense his pain, but worse than the pain was the resignation. He had no fear. While he would not be caged, he was close to accepting an end, believing he didn't deserve anything more.

No, no, no . . .

Her eyes sprang open and she bolted upright on an empty couch. Sometime during the night, she'd pulled a blanket over her, or maybe Dante had done that, in an unexpected gesture of tenderness. But where was he? When she scrambled up, a quick search showed she was alone. No note. She'd not yet seen his handwriting. Would it be neat, or a broken scrawl? She had so many discoveries ahead of her with him, but where the hell was he?

Throwing a sweatshirt over a pretty demi-bra she knew he'd like, she wriggled into jeans and a pair of canvas sneakers and left the town house. As she closed the door and headed down the steps, she came to a full stop, smacking her temple with a hand.
Idiot.
She'd completely forgotten she had another way to find him.

Dante, where are you?
She attempted to keep the panic out of her thought, but quickly realized it was a moot point when one was thinking rather than speaking.

I am here. In the park across from your home.

Still caught in the disturbance of her dream, she almost gasped in relief. Heading for the park at a trot, a few moments later she came upon him.

He had his back against a tree, and was sitting on the ground. Turned toward a grove of trees, he appeared to be watching the birds peck the ground for the remains of bread crumbs that had been left by someone sitting on the nearby park bench in the early morning hours.

An old woman. She left. I think I frightened her, sitting here in the darkness.

Alexis approached him. He was wearing the jeans and open shirt, the band at his throat a silver glint in the early morning light. His feet were bare. In some odd way, he appeared young, sitting there, staring at those birds. Alexis sank down next to him, laying a hand on his knee.

"Are you okay?"

His gaze roved over her face, her mouth, as if he was learning her all over again. She realized he wasn't wearing his sunglasses, and wondered what the old lady feeding the birds had thought.

"I don't think she could see very well. It does not matter, anyhow. As you said, humans will explain away anything they don't understand. Since most of them forgot the Mountain Battle, my eyes are a small thing."

She shifted to her hip and he surprised her when he lifted an arm and laid it around her shoulders, scooting her in closer against the morning chill.

"I don't want to go back," he said at last. "But that place they kept me while you were unconscious, it was like the Dark One world, but different. I fit there."

Hell.
Lex wanted to deny it, insist he belonged in a world of light with her, but she remained silent, let him speak his peace.

"In the shower, I was thinking of everything that has happened. Not just the dangerous things, like the woods or the being that Reba saw while we were in the tank. I have been thinking of the things you have tried to show me, teach me. I thought as you did, that it was only a matter of time, but this is not the world I knew, where adaptation is about surviving, fighting. Here it is about living. Trusting." He met her eyes. "You have said that to me, several times. There are many things that I don't understand, that I'm not ready to accept. I was in an entirely different world for decades, as you said."

He gave her a bleak look, for him an almost vulnerable expression, one that shocked her. "In Hell, I will pose less of a danger. Make a more gradual introduction to your world. This will be less difficult for you."

"You aren't difficult," she said immediately, but he shook his head, squeezed her hands to bid her silent again.

"I have no wish to be your burden, Alexis. You say you are mine, my mate, my lover. To be that, I need to become something in this world. I have asked you several times why you helped me, do you remember?"

When she nodded, he glanced back at the birds. "Even at the beginning, when it was clear I was the one who'd kidnapped you, the first thing you did in the Dark One world was beg me for help. You see a part of me that is closed to my own eyes. This morning, watching you sleep, I finally realized that you have been telling me the truth about why you helped me. I just don't know enough to understand that part of you, and I could hurt you very badly in the process of trying to understand."

"You won't."

"Yes, Alexis, I would." He gave her a level glance. "For so many years, I just wanted away from one place, more than I cared about belonging anywhere else. And now I find that this is supposed to be my home, my mother's world, and it is a home that may not want me. I could carve myself a place here with blood and fear, but that is what I left. I want to know something different, but I do not yet know how to be different. You've shown me what is possible, but I must learn that road. What I want seems to be within my grasp, but it's a puzzle I cannot comprehend. So though I hold it in my hand"--his fingers tightened on hers--"I'm not sure I will obtain it."

She studied him, sitting so still, his back against a tree. He was a shadow in the night, something that most would miss, or when discovered, would strike terror into the heart of an unwitting pedestrian or early jogger. "Dante," she said quietly. "I've asked you before. We all have, but I'm asking you to tell me. What do
you
want?"

She wasn't sure if he'd answer, but then she was stunned to feel a door opening inside him that wasn't anger, but something far stronger. Something even her empathic senses hadn't felt because of how tightly it had been locked within him. It could implode if not handled gingerly, a nuclear bomb that would cause his cells to devour one another rather than reveal the secret they kept.

"Just this," he said at last. His tortured voice brought tears to her eyes. "I want this, Alexis. The ability to sit beneath a tree, smell grass, hear birds. Go to sleep and not have to stay on the edge of waking, prepared to fight for my life. I want to see and do the things you've done all your life and taken for granted because they were always there. Gifts you never think of as gifts because you've always had them, like the ability to breathe.

"I have done everything your father accused me of. And I would do it all again, just to have this," he gestured. "The ability to sit under a tree without fear. Without the stench of sulfur and blood in my nose." He stared back out at the night. "If they weren't going to let me have that, I was prepared to fight them, destroy whoever I had to destroy, but I'd turn this world into the one I left." His gaze shifted to hers. "I don't want your world to become that, even if I'm not allowed to be a part of it. The angel and witch want to send me back to the Dark One world. Before I found out about our marks, I would have preferred death to that."

"No." She gripped his arm. "You can't--"

"Would you want to live in that world, Lex? Would you want anyone you care about to be imprisoned in that world?"

"I wouldn't want an enemy in that world," she admitted. He nodded.

"I should go back to Hell, stay there for a while. If I cannot prove myself, then they can imprison me there if they feel they must. Because of our bond, I think they will agree to that. Then I will be in your world, the world of my mother, even if they never trust me enough to release me."

"Dante." Alexis firmed her chin. "It's way too early for this talk, you know? You really--"

A shadow crossed his face, a real one, at the same moment that odd feeling returned, strong enough to make her gasp. "Dante--"

Jerking her to her feet, he shoved her away from him, making her stumble over the tree's roots and fall to her knees. Before she could cry out in surprise, a net had fallen over him. Silver and gold strands, an enchantment. Alexis scrambled up and lunged forward, trying to yank it off him. As Dante fought it, she smelled singed skin, saw his fingers burn from the contact.

It didn't cause her harm, though. She threw herself at it, frantically seeking a way to lift it.
Pyel, help! Marcellus, David, please help us.

She was grabbed from behind and flung back. Dante roared as she hit the ground hard. As she rolled, she came back to her feet and caught a glimpse of three creatures. Leather wings, long golden white hair, sharp eyes, long noses and a flash of pale skin were brief impressions as she launched herself at them, snatching up a rock. "Let him go."

Alexis, don't.

But she didn't heed Dante. The nearest creature turned, catching her wrist and snapping the rock out of her hand with one effortless move. "You are not part of the evil," it said in a voice like the music of wind and stream, of deep earth. She felt only calm impassivity, nothing else. "You are unwise to help him."

"Let him go." Struggling, she settled for a sharp kick that earned a grunt. A backhand sent her spinning through the air. Landing hard on the ground, she skidded several feet. She had time to think that she'd been sent flying through the air way too many times this week before the second creature was upon her. While he held her down, the net tightened into a ball, drawing Dante into a painful fetal position, rendering him even more helpless.

He'd been in this place before. His mind was shredding itself, trying to get around it, and she screamed at the torment of it. It shattered her filters, took her down into the madness of his mind.
I'd rather die than go back to that.

"Who are you?" she wailed.

"We are the protectors of the Fen," the winged creature holding her said, studying her with ruthless detachment. "You are not part of this. Evil will answer for murder."

"Wait. You can't. He's--"

"It's irrelevant," the being said. "Good-bye."

A flash of light flooded the glade. Straining through that conflagration of Dante's rage and emotions and her own aching body, Alexis saw a silver-white portal open, felt the wild spiraling wind of it lash out and drive her back to her knees, even as she struggled to go forward. Dante's gaze met hers. The look in his eyes tore her heart from her. His fear and rage were soul deep. He couldn't be bound and made helpless again. He couldn't. He'd destroy everything around him if he had to. The collar would burn through his throat, taking his head long before he would ever stop fighting.

I'll find you. I promise, I'll find you.

Gripped by the sheer chaos of his mind, she was frozen by the sound of his voice, calm and dangerously impassive, devoid of emotion.
Let me go, Alexis. You have done enough. Thank you. If they kill me . . . I'm sorry for binding you to me.

"I'm not," she shouted over that wind. But she wasn't sure if he'd heard her, because he was gone. She stumbled forward into the energy chasm left behind, a dead space that spread through the glade and dropped her to her knees.

She propped herself on one hand, but before she could attempt to scramble to her feet, a different energy invaded the glade, fierce, familiar and warm at once, accompanied by the rushing sound of multiple wings. Jonah's hands were on her shoulders. As she spun around to stare up into his stern warrior's face, she couldn't stop the tears. Dante was gone, but his emotions were still with her, tearing her apart inside.

She had no idea where he was, only the lingering certainty that the odd winged creatures meant to kill him . . . or worse.