Blood Bond (9 page)

As Sorin brushed against her leg, his hard
cock poked into her flesh. Starr wondered if they felt the same nameless need
she did. Apparently, they hadn’t been completely satisfied either.

Lucian disengaged her hold on his cock and
scooted backward before turning her on her side. Sorin settled on his side
beside her, pressing his chest against her breasts. Starr put her arm over his
waist and squeezed his muscled buttock.

Lucian pulled the plug from her anus, and
Starr knew what would happen next. She felt a flutter of alarm, remembering how
Sorin and the plug had stretched her, but her longing was stronger than her
fear. They were meant to fit together—three parts of the whole.

Sorin just held her as Lucian lay against
her, pulling her cheeks apart with his hand. Starr met Sorin’s gaze as the head
of Lucian’s cock pressed against her anus. She moved her head forward to kiss
him as the cock pressed inside her. It was a snug fit, and she felt a moment of
pain, but it faded as Lucian stayed in her without moving. Sorin’s tongue
darted into her mouth, mimicking the motion his hips would make soon.

She draped her thigh over Sorin’s as his
lower body pressed against hers. He slipped a hand between their bodies and
parted her pussy. She broke the kiss and buried her face in his hairy chest as
his cock probed her opening. She took a deep breath as he sheathed his cock in
her pussy, and her body responded to their presence with a moment of pain. Her
breathing sounded like an explosion when she exhaled, while concentrating on
keeping her body relaxed.

It was almost like meditation, as she
pictured their cocks surging in and out of her. Somehow, just visualizing the
act helped her expand to accommodate them, although she was still tight around
their cocks.

“Starr? Can we thrust?”

She nodded, and then realized Lucian
probably couldn’t see the motion of her head. “Yes, please.” Sorin’s hair
tickled her lips as she spoke, while his hard chest muffled her voice. Lucian
must have heard her answer anyway, because he began to thrust in and out of
her, in concert with Sorin, so that they both entered her simultaneously.

There wasn’t any pain as they moved. Starr
thought that was significant, while she was still able to think. Within
minutes, their thrusts had driven any logical thoughts from her mind. Their
movements reduced her to a creature of sensation, whose voice’s only purpose
was to give life to sounds of her pleasure.

The intensity was building inside her. It
was a sensation washing over her, going deeper than her convulsing pussy and
clenched anus, begging for release. This was something different. It felt like
white heat burning her from the inside out, and colors exploded behind her
eyes, like fireworks.

As Sorin surged deep inside her, with
Lucian following suit, Starr’s orgasm swept through her. She screamed with the
pleasure, but also with the surge of heat that flooded her. The colors grew
more intense, and she opened her eyes, hoping to drive them away. She could
still see them and realized it wasn’t something she was imagining. She was
undergoing a physical reaction to their lovemaking, and it wasn’t just from the
pleasure she felt.

Her climax reached its zenith when Lucian
and Sorin came inside her. As their cocks spasmed, filling her with their
satisfaction, it was as though a vortex opened in her mind. She could feel it
drawing her in, but was powerless to stop the wave of blackness that
overwhelmed her, stealing consciousness from her.

The vision from the previous night consumed
her immediately, and it was clearer now. She was no longer viewing it from the
perspective of the person on the bed. Rather, she watched from a shadowed corner
of the bedchamber as a figure that was clearly feminine lifted a silver dagger
high over her head. With a harsh laugh, she plunged it down with all her might.

Starr gasped when the dagger penetrated the
heart of the queen, tethered to the bed, as was Demi. This time, she could see
faint bands of purple energy holding Anca and the king in place and recognized
it as true magic—not like the form practiced by their people, which relied
heavily on natural herbs, tradition, and ceremony.

A cloud shadowing the moon shifted,
illuminating the window near the bed. The attacker’s face almost came into view
as she turned to advance on Demi, who struggled to cry out, but couldn’t get
his voice to cooperate. She shouted a cry of warning when the woman raised the
dagger higher, but could effect no change on the outcome of the vision. She
watched helplessly as the attacker dispatched Demi with equal ruthlessness.

She jerked with surprise when someone
called her name with desperation. At first, she thought it was someone entering
the queen’s bedchamber, and braced herself for attack. The voices became
distinguishable, and she recognized Sorin and Lucian calling to her.
Immediately, she realized she was in a vision. She struggled to open her eyes,
to return to reality. With one last look at the bloody dagger the woman was
wiping on Anca’s white robe, she wrenched her eyelids up and returned to the
cabin.

Sorin and Lucian hovered over her, both
wearing identical expressions of concern. She blinked and struggled to remember
what had happened. They seemed to sense her confusion, because they began
speaking in a rush, talking over each other.

“You passed out—“

“—couldn’t wake you—“

“—are you all right, Starr?” Sorin asked.

Slowly, she nodded, almost surprised to
find her body responded to her brain’s command. She still felt sluggish and
disoriented. She attempted to sit up, and they both supported her. She touched
a hand to her pounding head. “I…I passed out?” she asked in a husky voice.

“Right when you came. You scared the hell out
of us,” Sorin said with anger, but with an underlying thread of concern he
couldn’t mask.

“Your eyes rolled back, you started
shaking, and we couldn’t rouse you,” Lucian added, sounding slightly calmer now
than he had seconds ago.

“I was having a vision.” Her brow furrowed.
“I was seeing the future, but I can’t say when. It could be tonight or next
week.” Starr’s eyes widened. “We have to return to the castle.”

Sorin nodded. “You need a healer—“

“No,” she said, cutting him off, “I must
warn the queen that she is in danger. In my vision, a woman murdered Anca and
Demi. I didn’t see her face, but she seemed familiar….” A sense of urgency
seized her. “We must go now.”

“Now?” Lucian sounded doubtful. “It’s only
about midnight. Surely, we have time…” He trailed off at Starr’s vigorous head
shaking.

“I’m sorry, but we have to return to the
castle. I can feel it.” The sense of urgency had increased. She couldn’t be
certain, but Starr thought the queen was in pressing danger. Tonight felt like
the night the Protector would come under attack.

Sorin sighed. “If you think it is
necessary, we will return,
dragostia
.”

She could see their disappointment, and it
mirrored her own, but Starr couldn’t remain in the cabin, indulging her every
sensual whim, while their Protector’s life was at risk. As she rose from the
bed and washed, she tried to console herself with the thought that surely the
queen or king had foreseen the danger. It brought little solace, because she
knew Ylenia had often had visions long before anyone else.

She should have known about this threat
weeks ago. If only her own wants hadn’t so consumed her, she would have known
about the assassin’s plan and could have warned everyone, so they could
formulate a plan. What if the queen died because she had been here with Sorin
and Lucian?

Starr paused in the process of transforming
to wolf-form. The realization came to her that making love with Sorin and
Lucian had somehow increased her powers. If she hadn’t given in to what her
heart and body longed for, she wouldn’t have known the queen’s life was in
peril. She cast a glance at Sorin and Lucian as they transformed, hoping she
would have the chance to tell Anca that, in support of allowing them to mate.
She couldn’t hide her love for Sorin and Lucian any longer, and she refused to
live a lie.

But now wasn’t the time to fret about that.
They had to hurry. Starr could taste danger in the air, and instinct warned her
there were more foes than the one she had seen in her vision to worry about, as
they left the cabin. If she had remained longer in her vision, she might know
from where to expect danger. Since she hadn’t, they were running blind as they
rushed through the forest, relying on their senses to warn them of jeopardy in
advance.

They ran steadily for the better part of an
hour, but Starr’s head began buzzing. Pressure filled her ears, and her eyes
scanned the forest around them constantly. The thought came to her that they
weren’t going to make it to the castle.

Sorin had been running slightly ahead of
them, and her eyes focused on him.
Stop
, she shouted into his mind.
Stop,
Sorin. There’s something up ahead.

He stopped so quickly that his paws skidded
into the mossy carpet of the woods as he spun sideways to look back at her.
Lucian must have heard her too, because he was now facing the other way,
sniffing deeply, while his eyes slowly examined every inch of forest.

Starr closed her eyes and tried to
concentrate on the feeling of danger overwhelming her. There seemed to be an
invisible cord pulling her attention off to her left. She turned her head and
opened her eyes, howling with shock when her gaze locked with narrowed eyes of
indeterminate color, looking down the stock of a crossbow. A gleam of silver on
the tip of the arrow caught her eye, just as the person holding the weapon
released it.

Sorin, move!
While warning him, Starr shifted to human-form. Before he could move or react
to her words of caution, the arrow had penetrated his side, eliciting a howl of
rage and pain. In the time it took Starr to watch the arrow enter his flesh,
the man or woman with the crossbow must have moved, because she couldn’t see
them when she looked up again.

Lucian’s howl morphed into a cry of rage as
he transformed to human-form and rushed to Sorin, who remained in wolf-form.
Starr cautiously approached, while scanning the forest for the hunter. The
sense of pressure in her head was easing, leading her to think the immediate
danger had passed. The person had probably gone deeper into the forests, hoping
to catch them from a different vantage point.

“What happened?” Lucian was staring with
horror at the arrow sticking out from Sorin’s side. “Sorin?”

“It was a man, I think, but it could have
been a woman. They had their face shrouded, and I couldn’t make out any other
details. I saw him in the woods,” Starr said. “He was using a crossbow.”

Sorin’s lids remained closed over his eyes,
but they could see the pupils moving rapidly underneath. His furry sides heaved
with each breath, and his shallow exhalations caused them to exchange worried
looks. His eyes didn’t so much as flicker when Lucian called his name again.

“I don’t understand why he won’t respond.
This injury shouldn’t have affected him this badly so quickly.”

“I think the arrow was tipped with silver.
It gleamed in the moonlight.”

Lucian’s eyes flashed, and he started to
get to his feet.

Starr touched his arm. “Where are you
going?”

“To catch the man who did this. I’ll kill
him.” There was no mistaking the air of wild recklessness surrounding Lucian.

“We can’t leave Sorin. The hunter will have
to wait. We have to get Sorin to the castle.” She tentatively touched the
smooth shaft of the arrow. “If we pulled out the arrow and had him transform,
he would heal himself, wouldn’t he?”

Lucian shook his head. His brief flash of
uncontrolled rage seemed to have faded, leaving him pale with concern. “Silver
is poisonous to us, as you know. It requires special treatment. Having him
change would only expend energy he needs right now to survive.”

She bit her lip, feeling inadequate. She
could deal with any of the few vampire afflictions, but had only scant
knowledge of werewolf care, even after these last six years. Neither Sorin nor
Lucian had ever been more than mildly ill and always recovered without the
assistance of a healer. How could she help Sorin?

Her training as a vampire healer did
nothing to prepare her for saving her lover. There had never been any need
before to heal a vampire in wolf-form. They simply transformed back to their
original state before treatment for the few ailments that might affect their
race. “What do we do?”

Lucian hesitated before shrugging. “I don’t
know.”

“We’ll get him back to the castle—“

“No.” Lucian heaved a sigh. “There’s only
one place he can find the right help, and they’re closer than the castle.”

She knew what it cost him to make the
suggestion, and she kept her tone carefully neutral when she asked, “Necheau?”

He nodded, but didn’t speak. There was a
look of grim determination on his face as he knelt down and lifted Sorin into
his arms. He grunted with the effort of carrying the large wolf, but looked as
though he planned to reach the Pack by sheer strength of will.