Blood Wolf Dawning (21 page)

She hadn’t thought that particular patch of skin between her shoulder blades would be an erogenous zone, but boy, had she been wrong.

She trembled, gasping, her hands clawing on to the bedding, her blood pounding as he made a hard, thick sound deep in his throat and turned her over
again, his mouth going straight for her belly this time.

“I need you in my mouth,” he growled against her navel. He flicked the ink there with his tongue, then licked at a patch of skin just beneath it. “Need to taste you so fucking badly, Sayre. Can I?”

Instead of giving him a verbal response, she simply pushed hard on those mouthwatering shoulders and spread her thighs as wide as she
could, holding her breath with anticipation of his tongue touching that most private part of her. But it didn’t. Instead, she felt his soft, warm lips brush against the tiny symbol she had tattooed high on her inner thigh.

“A beautiful little Celtic cross. For Ireland,” he murmured, and she knew that what he really meant was
for me
. And he was right. It had been for him. A way for her to
carry him with her, even when she’d so badly wanted to hate him, but couldn’t. Her dark, tortured Irishman. So eager for connection, though he would never admit it.

“It’s fitting,” he said huskily, “seeing as how this part of you is like my own personal holy ground.”

She was still laughing softly when he turned his head and pressed his open mouth right over the hot, drenched center of
her sex, her laughter choking off into a breathless gasp.
Oh...oh, wow
. That was seriously mind-blowing. Bone-melting. He pushed his face into her, his tongue and lips everywhere, going at her with an aggressive, unapologetic hunger that felt so freaking good she could have cried, the guttural groans that he gave making it sound like he was feasting on something lush and sweet. Something he couldn’t
get enough of, as if he’d been starved for the taste of her.

Though Sayre had fantasized about this moment an embarrassing number of times, she’d had no idea it would be like
this
. That he would spend so much time with his dark head buried between her thighs, pulling pleasure from her writhing body as if it were
his
to control. His shoulders kept her spread wide and his thumbs held her tender
folds open as he did things that would have shocked the hell out of her, if she hadn’t discovered a love of steamy romance novels. She’d thought, given her extensive reading, that she had a good handle on what this would feel like. But the heroes in her books didn’t have anything on Cian.

It wasn’t just his skill, though the man was clearly incredible at it, every part of him made for sin.
But even more than that, it was the way he didn’t try to hide how badly he needed it, letting her feel every bit of his hunger. A craving that was as visceral and primitive as the animal that lived inside him. He moved his tongue inside her body like he might die if he didn’t get
more
of her, his mouth nothing less than voracious as he licked and sucked at her slippery flesh, consuming her. Driving
her out of her mind with pleasure. And then she was coming in a hot, mind-shattering rush, hoarse cries spilling from her lips as she trembled and pulsed, melting against his mouth in wave after wave of release, while he growled dirty things against her sensitive flesh, telling her how perfect she tasted. How he couldn’t get enough of her. How he wanted her to keep coming for him...harder and
deeper and wetter. And so she did. Over...and over...until she was as boneless as a rag doll, arms and legs flung wide, her head foggy, thoughts drifting somewhere out there in a glittering, throbbing darkness.

She didn’t know how many minutes had passed by the time she finally came back to herself. He was still nuzzling her with his open mouth, lapping at her with his tongue, the sounds
he made telling her how much he was enjoying himself. And while it was incredibly lovely, she was eager for her chance to return the favor, her mouth watering at the thought of getting that thick, beautiful part of him between her lips.

“What are you doing?” he growled, locking his gaze with hers when she sat up and pushed against his shoulders, shoving him to his back. She quickly moved
to kneel between his thighs, wishing she’d gotten the jeans off him as she flicked her gaze up. Her breath caught when she found him watching her with a hot, heavy-lidded stare, his mouth and chin glistening with her juices.

“Don’t even think about stopping me,” she told him, tugging the waist of his jeans down enough that she could curl her hands around that thick, steely shaft, the head
so ripe and succulent looking she couldn’t wait to get her first taste. “This is
mine
.”

Something hot and wicked flared in his eyes as she made that pronouncement, and she knew she had him.

“You want me in your mouth?” he asked in a graveled voice, licking his slick lower lip as he braced his upper body on his elbows, looking so freaking sexy it was unreal.

Desperate for him, she
answered the question with actions instead of words, as she leaned down and covered the broad, wet tip of him with her mouth and swiped at his hot flesh with her tongue. Flicking her eyes up again, she caught him watching her from beneath the thick black fringe of his lashes, his color high, marking the sharp crests of his cheekbones, his sensual lips parted for his ragged breaths. In that instant,
she realized that she could so easily get addicted to this. To the raw intimacy of the act, and how right it felt as she started to suck on him, taking him deeper while she stroked the bottom inches of his shaft with her hand, knowing she was making the most powerful male she’d ever known tremble with need. Her senses were in overdrive, her body vibrating with a fine tremor as she tried to soak
in every part of him, from his warm, musky scent, to the salty, exquisite taste that sat on her tongue like that was where it belonged.

“Finish me,” he growled, keeping his head lifted as he dropped down to his back, his eyes glowing like bright chips of molten silver.

“With my hands?” She whispered the words against the very tip of him, laving the moist flesh with her tongue. She knew
exactly how much he liked it by the way he gasped, the muscles in his abdomen rippling as his fingers speared hard into her hair, clutching her to him. “Or with my mouth?”

“Christ,” he hissed, his expression so intense it was almost a scowl. “Are you trying to make me crazed?”

“No. You just make me hungry.”

He stilled, holding his breath. “For what?”

“Everything,” she whispered,
letting her lips rub against the hot, sensitive crown, the thick shaft throbbing in her hands. “All of it. I want to crawl inside your head and live in your thoughts. Taste your emotions. Feel your pleasure.”

“You
are
my pleasure,” he growled, the tendons in his strong, corded throat straining beneath his skin.

“Then
show
me,” she told him, taking the succulent head between her lips
again, ignoring the sting of pain from where Aedan had struck her when she’d tried to get away from him. Forcing that dark thought from her head, she focused on
her
male, making her mouth as hungry and as wet as she could for him, greedy for his release as her hands stroked the broad inches she couldn’t reach. She loved his raw, gritty curses and the way he gripped her hair as he got close, but
she was
crazy
for the way he shuddered and shouted when he came, his feet planted flat on the bed, hips pumping as she stayed with him, doing everything she could to make it good for him.

When she finally lifted her head, he grasped her by the arms and hauled her up over his chest, surprising her with the way he took her mouth, kissing her as if he would go mad without the touch of her tongue
against his, their mouths moving together as they fought for a deeper angle, a deeper way to taste—until he suddenly made a sharp, guttural sound deep in his chest. Before she could react, he quickly rolled her onto her back, his big body caging hers in as he braced himself over her on all fours.

She started to ask him what the hell was wrong, only to break off with another gasp when she
saw the fresh smear of blood on his mouth from her bleeding lip. It was clear from the way he’d reacted that the taste of her blood had been a shock to him, the way he was taking such deep, rough breaths and eyeing her mouth telling her he was still struggling to get himself under control.

Then he slid her a dark, glittering look from beneath his thick lashes, and there was a...a
precision
to the way he was watching her that told her he was up to something. That his clever mind had just come up with an idea...or a plan of some sort. One he had no intention of sharing, judging by the hard cast to his masculine features.

“Cian,” she whispered, her eyes going wide as he moved his hand to her face and pressed the pad of his thumb to the cut on her lip. Then he trailed the crimson-stained
pad down the front of her throat, over the hammering beat of her pulse at the base, and lower, trailing it between her quivering breasts. Wetting the pad with her blood again, he coated both her nipples, then traced his thumb around her navel, lower, down into the strawberry-blond curls on her mound.

When he was done, he snagged her heavy-lidded gaze and murmured,
“Trust me,”
as he leaned
down and pressed his open mouth to her throat, his warm tongue lapping against her bloodstained skin.

“Oh, God,”
she moaned, shivering with poignant arousal. Watching his beautiful mouth follow the same path that his thumb had taken was the most erotic experience of her life, her power so charged it was literally arcing from her body in shimmering bolts of light. He took his time licking
her sensitive skin, the thick sounds he made in the back of his throat telling her how much he loved it. Especially when he’d followed the crimson path right into her curls, and lower, his mouth just as ravenous as he’d been before, making her come twice before he suddenly lifted his head and jerked away from her, crouching on all fours at the foot of the bed.

“Cian?” she whispered, moving
to her knees so that she could reach out to him, his tortured expression tearing at her heart. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t care if you want to or not,” he groaned between his harsh breaths, his hands fisting the bedding as he lowered his head, hiding from her gaze. “I just need you to listen to me, Sayre, and I need you to do as I say. Get dressed and get the hell out of this room. Then...run
as fast as you can.”

“What?”

“Go to Jillian and Jeremy’s.” He lifted his head, and she gasped when she saw that his eyes had turned completely crimson again. “Run, Sayre. Now!”

“No,” she breathed out, unwilling to leave him.

“Goddamn it, woman! Get the fuck out of here!”

She shook her head, and he curled in on himself, shuddering so hard it looked painful, every hard,
powerful muscle in his magnificent body coiled tight beneath his damp skin.

Careful not to make any sudden movements, Sayre shifted closer to him. “I’m not afraid of you, Cian. Please, let me help you.”

He ground his forehead against the bed and groaned like a man in agony. “Christ, you’re impossible.”

“I don’t mean to be,” she said softly, carefully inching her way closer. “I simply
care about you too much to run away from you when you need me.”

He shivered like someone with a raging fever. “Even when the things I need aren’t something I deserve?”

“I don’t think you get to make that decision.”

A raw, fractured sound tore from his throat, muffled against the bedding. “Damn it, lass, I’m trying to do right by you.”

“Hmm. Have you ever thought that maybe
you should just
do me
instead?”

“Don’t!” he barked, breathing in rough, uneven bursts. “Christ, don’t do that. Don’t flirt with me right now. I can’t take it.”

“Then just let me comfort you,” she murmured, reaching out and stroking his broad back with a gentle touch. They stayed like that for untold minutes, until his breathing had finally slowed and his body was no longer gripped in
that terrible tension. He rolled to his side and let her put a pillow under his head, his expression still strained, though his eyes had returned to their natural silver.

When she laid down beside him and rested her cheek on her bent arm, he reached out and stroked his hand over her hair. Then he wrapped his arm around her and yanked her against him, tucking her head under his chin as he
threw his long leg over hers. Burying his face against the top of her head, he spoke in a low, husky tone that was so solemn it made tears burn at the back of her throat. “No matter what happens, my biggest regret will always be that I wasn’t able to claim you as
mine
.”

Clutching on to him with desperate hands, Sayre had to fight back the urge to shout at him to open his damn eyes, look in
a mirror and
see
the truth she could have sworn burned in that silver gaze every single time he looked at her. But what good would come of it? He wouldn’t see the truth until he was ready. Until he finally allowed himself to move on from the past and was ready to fight for his future. To fight for
her.
Not in the way that he was fighting to protect her from Aedan, but for her heart. For the future
she prayed they could have one day. That she so desperately wanted.

But there was no guarantee that he would ever reach that point—and she no longer knew if she could continue to play it safe. Doing so went against everything her instincts were telling her to do. She might have started out hiding behind her emotional armor, afraid of the damage he could leave behind—but she understood him
better now. The damage was already done, which meant it was time to go all in or go home. And she didn’t have a home without him.

She wanted Cian. The wolf, the vampire and whoever else he might have living inside of him. She didn’t care, she simply wanted them all.

She wanted
her
man.

Chapter 15

Twenty-seven hours later...

P
ure green, for as far as his eyes could see. That was what always caught Cian off guard when he came back to the land where he’d been born. The deep, vibrant green.

Would look incredible against Sayre’s golden red hair
, his beast murmured, its guttural voice as dejected as his own. He kept having to blink goddamn moisture out of
his eyes, so what the hell was that about? He’d never cried in his life, and now
this
. He felt like he was in a sappy romance flick. And it didn’t help that he’d spent the entire seven-hour flight across the Atlantic poring over all
The Green Witch
videos that he’d downloaded onto his phone before leaving, still marveling at what Sayre had achieved at such a young age, and completely on her own.
He was so damn proud of her there weren’t even words to express it.

And he missed her so much it was killing him, each moment that took him farther away from her cutting him like a blade.

Though it’d been the hardest thing he’d ever done, Cian had left her sleeping beneath the covers just after the sun had set, and gone to speak with Brody, pulling the Runner away from his dinner. Hating
that he hadn’t been able to tell her goodbye, he’d been in a grim, miserable state as he told Brody that he’d devised a plan for dealing with Aedan, and would need his promise to keep Sayre under heavy lockdown, whether she wanted it or not, as soon as he was gone.

Then he’d climbed in the Audi and left her. Again. Only this time had been a thousand times worse than before, because he damn
well
knew
what he was leaving behind.

As he’d held the witch in his arms after she’d fallen asleep, Cian had finally started to understand what they’d been doing. How they’d both been navigating a minefield of emotion, both gut-wrenchingly terrified of getting hurt...and so determined to protect themselves, they were living in lies and half-truths.

At least he was. He had been for...God,
for too many years to count.

And with that stunning realization came another one that would have taken his damn legs out from under him, if he hadn’t already been lying down. One he still couldn’t think about without feeling like the biggest idiot on the face of the planet. All these years since he’d discovered the truth about his old man, he’d always been convinced he
couldn’t
love because
he was too much like him. Because he carried his blood in his veins, and had done so many wrongs. But the truth was that he was too afraid of being vulnerable, just like his mother. Of giving his love to someone who didn’t love him in return, and ending up completely destroyed.

He’d wanted to stay there in that bed with Sayre, and keep working these stunning revelations through his mind,
feeling like a man who’d always been blind suddenly discovering the gift of sight. But as always, the timing hadn’t been right. He’d been forced to leave her, and yeah, he knew how she must be feeling about that. No doubt cursing him to hell and back for walking away from her all over again.

That seemed to be another constant, the way that doing the right thing always made him a massive dick.
Maybe that’s what he should ask them to put on his tombstone. Then again, maybe not. He could just imagine the questionable array of “objects” that would be left on his grave as mementos.

Though that last thought made him snicker, the quiet burst of laughter quickly died as he steered his Range Rover onto the winding country road that would take him to Killian’s Mount, the seaside estate
where he’d grown up. Despite the fact that the sun was still shining, he was nothing but a cold, aching shell, every cell of his body suffering from withdrawal.

But nothing about the way he was feeling changed anything. In fact, it only made him more determined to follow his current course of action.

An alive and kicking Aedan Hennessey meant that Sayre would never be safe.

So Aedan
had to die. As soon as possible. By
whatever
means necessary.

It was as simple as that.

Stopping at his first destination, an overgrown-with-ivy cottage that sat on the edge of his father’s land, Cian went inside and set his plan in motion. Within minutes, he was back in the Range Rover and driving toward the main house, the salty scent of the sea crashing against the nearby craggy cliffs
clinging to his hair and clothes.

More cottages had been added to the estate since he’d last visited, but it didn’t surprise him. His old man had never managed the art of self-control when he’d been younger, and he obviously wasn’t any closer now. God only knew how many half siblings Cian had within the borders of the estate. Aedan might have been the first of his father’s illegitimate children,
but he was hardly the last.

He was also the only one that Cian had claimed. A mistake he wished more than anything he could go back and change.

By the time he was climbing the stone steps leading up to the front door of his father’s palatial home, he had his teeth clenched so hard he was surprised they hadn’t cracked. He didn’t bother to knock—simply let himself in, and hoped like hell
that the bastard took offence at it. Pissing off his old man was one of his favorite pastimes—though it didn’t come anywhere close to spending time with Sayre, or kissing Sayre, or making the beautiful little witch come so hard she screamed. Hell,
anything
that involved Sayre topped his list of favorites. Even when she was frustrating him to the point of tears, his life was better than it had
ever been without her. And he knew, without any doubt, that particular little fact wasn’t ever going to change.

For the first time ever, Cian was actually letting himself be happy about it. Was embracing the hell out of it, and holding on as tightly as he could, ready to fight for it with everything that he had.

As he made his way through the sunlit halls, it didn’t take him long to
track down the object of his visit. He found his father in the library, sitting in a heavy leather chair by the far wall of windows, a book on his lap. Colin Hennessey was a big, robust man who looked no more than fifty, and Cian had definitely inherited his father’s height and his broad shoulders. Everything else, thank God, he’d taken from his mother. Her coloring. Her eyes. He was grateful for
each and every trait that she’d passed on to him, wanting to see as little of this jackass as he had to when he looked in a mirror.

“Father,” he murmured, crossing his arms over his chest as he propped his shoulder against the door frame. “I wish I could say it’s good to see you, but we both know that would be a lie.”

Colin sighed heavily as he set aside the book he’d been reading, and
it was clear that he was unsurprised to see Cian standing there. But then, he knew one of his father’s security detail had no doubt notified him the instant he’d driven onto the property. Steepling his fingers together as he rested his elbows on the padded arms of the chair, Colin said, “Still angry, I see.”

Cian slowly lifted his brows. “Did you honestly expect a hug?”

Exhaling a tired
breath, Colin replied with a question of his own. “How long are you going to make me pay for a sin that you know I’m sorry for?”

“I don’t care if you’re sorry,” he said tightly. “I could have forgiven you for anything but breaking her. Betraying her. So your answer is forever. Any love or respect or care I held for you died the day I realized what a miserable excuse of a man you are.”

“You hold me to your standards, but I’m not a Lycan, Cian. I’m part man, part darkness, and you don’t know how impossible Alice was to resist.”

“Don’t. I know exactly how easily you fell into bed with Aedan’s mother. And she was simply the first of many.”

Colin frowned. “I’m not like you,” he repeated.

“If you’d loved your wife, you would have been true to her. You wouldn’t have
wasted your time on trash.”

“Damn it, I
did
love her.”

A gruff, bitter laugh jerked from his chest. “No, you didn’t. You loved the way she made you feel. The way
her love
made you feel. Powerful. Strong. Worthy. But that was her mistake. She should have ran the instant she ever set eyes on you.”

“Just because we never completed the blood bond doesn’t mean she didn’t belong with
me. She was my wife, Cian! Her place was at my side!”

He shook his head, his tone thick with revulsion. “She always said you couldn’t bond with her because of the darkness in your heart. The evil flowing through your veins. But I know differently. I know firsthand,” he growled through his gritted teeth. “You. Lied.”

Leaning forward in his chair, his father gave him a penetrating look.
“You’re not bonded. I would be able to tell.”

“You’re right, I’m not. But not because I
can’t
.” No, he knew damn well that if he’d lived his life differently, he would have already claimed the hell out of Sayre Murphy and forged a bond with her that was more powerful than anything their world had ever seen. “I haven’t bonded with my woman yet, because unlike you, I’m willing to put her first.”

Colin’s thick brows rose. “And is that why you’re here? Because you’re putting her first?”

“I’m here because I’m ending this thing between Aedan and me once and for all. This is where it began, and this is where it will end.”

Those thick brows pulled together in a frown. “You really intend to kill your own brother?”

Shaking his head again, he said, “The monster walking around
with Aedan’s face isn’t my brother. The boy we both loved was lost a long time ago. There’s nothing of Aedan left in him.”

Colin’s chest lifted with a deep breath, the look in his dark eyes almost painfully piercing. “I know you blame me for not helping you before.”

“I blame you for a hell of a lot more than that. But I’m not here to ask for your help. The only purpose of this visit
is to make my position clear. I
will
fight Aedan to the death when he comes, and I
will
kill anyone who tries to stand in my way.
Anyone
. So if you want your bloody family safe, tell them to stay the hell away from me.”

He pushed off from the door frame and started to turn away, when Colin’s next words stopped him. “I...I made a mistake.” At Cian’s look of disgust, Colin grimaced. “All right,
many
mistakes. We’ve already been over this, but your mother—what I did to her—is the greatest of my failures. I had something...something unique, and I tossed it away for what amounted to nothing.”

Cian narrowed his eyes. “If you knew what you had to lose, then why did you do it?”

“Because I was...” He paused to clear his throat, and then went on, looking as if the gruff words were
being torn out of him against his will. “I didn’t handle the things she made feel at all well. After you were born, those feelings grew. And she was somehow even more beautiful. More precious to me. I didn’t know how to embrace that, and it wasn’t long before I started to resent the pull that she had on me.”

“That’s why she could never bond with you,” he muttered, his insides churning. “What
you felt for her, you never allowed it to take hold. You fought it every step of the way. But you were too selfish to let her walk away and be happy without you.”

Colin gave a weary nod, and for the first time that he could remember, his father actually looked his age. He looked old. Hollow.

“And your loyalty to Aedan?” Cian asked. “How do you explain that?”

Sighing, Colin said,
“Despite what he became, he’s still my son.”

“Not for long,” he grunted, turning away again.

“By the way,” Colin called out, “I have the bachelor’s house ready for you, and your guests are in the lodge.”

Stopping dead in his tracks, Cian slowly turned back around, his hooded gaze locking with his father’s through the open doorway. “My
what
?” he asked in a low, ominous tone.

Studying him with a deep, measuring stare, Colin said, “Your guests.”

“Aw, fuck!”

Without another word, Cian turned and slammed out of the house, stalking across the lush lawn as he headed toward the massive stone-and-timber lodge that sat near a thicket of trees. Fear sat in the back of his throat like something threatening to choke him and his pulse thrashed in his ears like the straining
roar of an engine. He knew exactly who his goddamn
guests
were, and he was furious that he hadn’t guessed they would do something this outrageous. God only knew how long they’d been here waiting for him. His trip had taken longer than usual because he’d flown directly into Dublin so that he could stop by his apartment and arrange to have his things packed and ready to ship out, once he provided
the moving company with an address. He knew where he
hoped
he would be going after this nightmare was over, but he wasn’t going to presume until things were settled. He just knew he wasn’t going to keep hiding in Dublin, pretending his entire world wasn’t back in Maryland.

You know damn well where we’re going
, his beast rumbled.
If we have to camp on her doorstep until she gives in, we’re
going back. Going after the girl!

“Yeah, well, the bloody girl is already here,” he bit out, catching Sayre’s mouthwatering scent as he neared the lodge.

Oh, hell no. I’m putting her over our knee for this and swatting her little ass!

“Not if I do it first,” he snarled, throwing the front door of the lodge open and letting out a thunderous roar.
“Sayre!”

A group of people walked
into the high-ceilinged entryway from various rooms, and his jaw clenched as he took them all in. The mercs must have been handling things back at the Alley, because nearly everyone else was standing in front of him. All the Runners and most of their mates. Even Max and Elliot were there.

But there wasn’t any sign of Sayre.

Scraping the words from his tight throat, he demanded, “What
the hell are you all doing here?”

Jillian came toward him, and for a split second, he thought she was going to slap him again. But she didn’t. Instead, she shocked ten years off his life when she threw her arms around his middle and hugged him so damn tightly he could barely breathe.