Blood Redemption (18 page)

Vanya knew it was wrong.

All of it.

Every word. Every entreaty. The logic was so…flawed.

So selfish.

And yet, it all rang so true.

The vampire’s breath scorched her ears; the feel of his skin heated her flesh; and
the desperation in his raspy voice seared her soul like an eternal flame, rising from
somewhere deep within, threatening to consume her very being. It wasn’t passion. It
wasn’t desire. It was a need as old as time itself, born from countless centuries
of feeling alone…remaining untouched.

Unknown.

Despite her very real objections, her wholesale aversion to his touch, her mouth found
his and parted. He inhaled and exhaled with her, and the feeling was overpowering.
She wanted to run away, to drop the cloaking spell and scream for Ramsey or Santos
to break through the magical veil, to stop what was happening in its tracks, before
it went too far. But gods help her, she was like a captive bird caught in the vampire’s
palm.

Entranced.

Intrigued.

Entrapped.

And the need wasn’t just his—it was hers. All those years in Romania, afraid for her
life, watching the steady demise of her people, never belonging to anything but the
aristocracy; all those years buried in the earth, entombed in the ground, while something
deep inside of her shut down, it was all rising to the surface.

It was true: She did not remember the Long Sleep or the pain of that existence, but
surely the utter sense of seclusion, the overwhelming experience of abandonment—the
fact that her repose could have ended up being eternal—had scarred her in ways she
could not even fathom. And what had finally saved them? Herself and Ciopori? It had
not been her cherished brother Jadon coming to the rescue as he had promised. It had
not been some higher calling to a better life, or even an intervention by the gods—she
and Ciopori had been saved by Marquis Silivasi, by the fact that someone had deeply
and eternally loved
her sister
.

Not her.

She winced at the realization of this fact and the pain she never let herself feel.

Saber couldn’t love—she knew this.

Hell, he couldn’t even breathe on his own, without needing to take the life force
of another, more evolved being, but he was alive and alone. And he belonged to no
one.

No one
.

Just like her.

The dragon must have sensed her inner conflict because he immediately went in for
the kill: He was no longer simply sealing her mouth in order to steal her breath,
but kissing her with a passion born of necessity and desperation, in a way that stole
her sanity. Saber Alexiares was all around her, all at once. She felt him above her,
below her, inside of her head, his hands, as they swept possessively up and down the
small of her waist to the flare of her hips; his thumbs as they came to rest just
beneath her breasts and began to knead; and his seeking fingers as they molded, grasped,
and teased her flesh into growing submission.

She wanted to push back, to fight, to force him away, but she didn’t know where to
begin.

He enveloped her slight frame like a blanket, wrapping his broad chest around her
shoulders like a cloak of masculinity, harsh yet inviting in its pulsating warmth,
its scorching fire. He towered over her, however unintentionally, his looming height
compelling her back until she was forced to arch to meet his demands, to keep from
losing her balance.

Dearest gods
,
he was like a hurricane, a cyclone enveloping her very soul.

“Saber,” she panted, breathless, hoping he would hear and release her from his grasp.

“Vanya,” he answered longingly, only tightening his hold. And then just like that,
he was lifting her, cradling her in his arms as he carried her across the room in
three long strides toward the cot.

No!

Stop!

What was he thinking?

She thought the words, but she didn’t speak them.

Her own lips were following his in a lethal, erotic dance of their own, unable to
stop responding, tasting, licking. By all that was holy, he was like a drug she could
not help but consume. He tasted like fire…and ice…and ecstasy.

She moaned as he laid her down beneath him on the cot, half in protest, and half in
desperation.
Where was this going? What was he going to do to her?

Oh, heavens…help her
!

And then her soft, sheer blouse was simply gone. What had he done with it? Did he
remove it—there had to be a dozen buttons—or did he rip it? She could hardly wrap
her mind around the thought, when a more pressing matter stole her attention: the
feel of rough yet passionate fingers finding their way beneath her silk camisole.
“Oh, Saber, no!” she cried out as two large hands cupped the fullness of her breasts
and began to knead with a mind-numbing skill that wasn’t even possible for one such
as he—what practice could he possibly have with seduction?

The tips of his thumbs and forefingers found her nipples, even as that harshly beautiful
mouth descended upon the same, each one seeking in turn, to nip, to lave, and to suckle.

“Saber!”

“What?” he growled low in his throat, coming up for air.

“Please…”

He flicked her left nipple with his tongue, teasing it harshly into a rigid state;
and then he bit down, the softest of nips on the rose-colored tip, before taking the
whole of the crown into his mouth.

She gasped.

He repeated the act on the right side, purring deep within his throat like the primal
animal he was.

Tears began to fall from Vanya’s eyes. She was so conflicted. So overwhelmed. So uncertain
and afraid.

So lost in the dragon’s fire.

“Shh, Printesa dulce. Taci. Da-ti drumul. Traieste cu mine.” He spoke the words in
the purist Romanian tongue she had ever heard, at least since she had awakened, and
the beauty of his native accent, so graceful and alluring, sent chills along her skin,
burrowing its way into her thundering heart:
Shh,
s
weet Princess. Be quiet. Let go. Live with me.
The phrase continued to echo in her mind.

“Mi-e foarte teama—
I am so afraid
,” she responded in kind.

He drew back on his arms then, capturing her gaze with a look of such intensity, such
hunger, that it stole her breath. His powerful arms nearly glistened in the moonlight,
the rippling muscles contracting like two hard globes as he arched above her. “Vanya,”
he practically purred the word, “I will not harm you this night.”

This night
?

What did he mean by that?

Before she could respond, he lowered his body to blanket hers; he cupped her jaw in
his strong, unyielding hands; and he propped himself up on his elbow in order to kiss
her once again, this time, with an urgency she could no longer resist. His passion
was tender yet savage, reckless yet controlled. He simply consumed her, and she melted
away, becoming one with his desire.

Vanya got lost in the sensations: Saber’s moist, warm mouth; his fierce, erotic touch;
the play of his fingers against her delicate skin; even the nip of his teeth along
her throat, her shoulders, her breasts… Time and time again, he played her like a
well-crafted instrument in need of fine-tuning, adjusting his pressure, choosing new
erogenous zones, alternately demanding and coaxing submission, all the while building
a slow, heated fire in her core.

When he began to grind his sinewy hips between her thighs, her eyes flew open and
she studied his face—she was only a heartbeat away from leaping from the cot and bolting—that
is, if she could break away from his impassive strength. His eyebrows were creased
with tension from the strain of holding back his full ardor; and his jaw was taut
with tension as he struggled to remain in control. Yet his harshly beautifully mouth
was slack with pleasure, almost as if he couldn’t believe the sensations himself.
He reached down to loosen the tie on her skirt, and then he slowly rose to his knees
in order to ease the garment from her hips.

She was trembling, and, when it was finally revealed, her concave stomach felt like
a newly constructed drum: taut, trembling, and heretofore untouched.

Saber sighed, a cross between a long exhale and a deep moan. “Be at ease, sweet Princess,
I will not hurt you.” And then he removed her panties.

Vanya shivered as he covered her mound with the palm of his hand, meeting the chill
and her fear with firm, intoxicating pressure. As he slowly, expertly, began to rotate
his hand in dizzying circles, she jackknifed off the bed unexpectedly, her hips rising
upward of their own accord. He stared at her brazenly then, his piercing eyes nearly
gazing straight through her, as he watched, evaluated, and calculated his every move.
As his hand continued to make magic between her thighs—testing, teasing, and finally
probing—she held her breath, and he smiled, however faintly.

The dragon s
miled
.

A tear rolled down Vanya’s cheek, and he reached out to swipe it away. And then, he
placed it on his tongue and tasted it. The very act of relishing the droplet must
have given him an idea because he, all at once, scooted lower on the bed; crouched
down before the apex of her thighs; and dipped his head to savor her heat, licking
slowly at first and then nuzzling her entirely, while pleasuring her peak with his
tongue.

Despite her trepidation, she reacted with abandon.

She drew back her legs, bent each at the knee, and dropped the weight of one thigh
against his thick mane of hair, unable to hold it steady for her trembling. He stroked
her thigh with avid approval and delved deeper into her core, pushing her ever more
closely toward impending release.

When, at last, Vanya felt as if she could take no more—her body was going to come
apart and splinter into a thousand pieces—Saber withdrew his mouth from her heat;
released his fangs with a slow, easy hiss; and deftly pierced her femoral artery,
latching on to the flesh of her inner left thigh.

Vanya jackknifed off the cot.

She cried out from the unexpected pain, and then she simply fractured—completely—lost
to the insanity of…
pleasure
… beyond her imagining.

As the orgasm deepened, grew in intensity with every drop the dragon took of her royal
blood, Vanya whimpered from the sensations. She was just about to lose her mind, to
try and force him to let go so she could stop writhing so erratically, when he released
the bite, retracted his fangs, and quickly sealed the wound with his venom. Before
she could catch her breath, he lowered his cargo pants from his narrow hips, rose
gracefully above her, and nestled his impossibly thick manhood against the seat of
her pleasure.

And then he plunged forward.

Without gentleness or restraint.

Breaking through her maiden’s barrier with shocking ferocity, while stretching her
so impossibly she feared she might just split down the middle.

A sharp cry of agony escaped her lips, and she struggled to claw her way out from
beneath him, to free herself from the sharp, scorching spear at her middle.
Dearest gods
, had he not known she was a virgin?

Saber looked all at once startled and confused—inexplicably horrified.

With his body still lodged deeply in hers, he locked their gazes and reached aggressively
for her mind. Without hesitation, he burrowed deep inside her psyche and immediately
blocked the pain—he simply stole it away as if it never existed, taking the sensations
into his own body, instead.

Vanya breathed a sigh of relief; and then she watched in rapt fascination as the conflicting
sensations of pain and pleasure—her experience and his, respectively—began to register
on the vampire’s face. His brow grew heavy with tension as he juggled the overwhelming
ecstasy engulfing his manhood with the scorching pain searing her sex. He slowly pulled
back. His angular jaw drew taut with indecision as he warred with his desire to force
her open and her need to have him withdraw. He rocked instead of plunging. His chest
began to quake as he resisted the masculine need for completion in favor of the feminine
need for comfort. He slid in and out instead of stabbing.

Saber paused as Vanya stretched.

He felt his way to the right level of pressure until, at last, her body accepted his
completely, and a new fire began to build. Then—and only then—he began to release
his psychic hold. He transferred Vanya’s sensations back into her body, waiting as
patiently as he could while she took possession of her own sensations until, at last,
she felt her own pleasure—and he could experience his.

The pace picked up, as did the desperation.

As Saber approached the point of no return, his strokes became harsh and unrelenting.
Vanya clung to his back, with her hands curled into fists, as she followed him helplessly
over a second cliff, spiraling right along with the dragon into a second, even more
powerful orgasm.

When at last her heart stopped racing, and his stopped pounding, she cupped his face
in her hands, her fingers trembling around his angular jaw. He started to draw back
out of impulse and surprise—the moment was obviously far too intimate—but he stopped
himself just short of retreating. “Dragon,” she whispered softly. “You did something…
kind
.”

He shook his head in protest, clearly taken aback by her words, as well as the truth
within them.

And this made her smile. “Do not worry,” she reassured him. “You are still—”

“A monster,” he grunted.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Always,” he insisted. “Don’t ever forget.”

She started to smile, to make an offhanded comment; but he stared her down with a
heated gaze, an implicit look of warning, and then he placed an extended finger over
her mouth to silence her. “Don’t
ever
forget,” he repeated.