Dark Embrace (Principatus) (17 page)

Inari glared at him, hating him even as her sex squeezed his unmoving cock buried deep in her drenched center. “I want you to fuck off.”

He chuckled, the motion making his intimate occupation of her pussy jerk a little. The barely felt vibrations ricocheted through Inari’s body and, before she could bite her lips, a moan escaped her and her pussy pulsed.

Ezryn’s nostrils flared again. “No, you don’t.”

His arrogance flayed her fraying control. She bared her teeth at him, willing his sexual enslavement of her body to hell. “Yes, I do. You may be the master of my body, you may be able to make me wet with just a single word, make me come with a single touch, but you are not the master of my mind. And my mind tells me everything about this is wrong.”

“I don’t believe you.” His stare drilled into her, holding her imprisoned. “I can hear your thoughts, Inari. Remember? They whisper to me with such wanton hunger. Your mind wants the exact same thing your body wants—for me to make you mine.”

“Screw you.” The words burst from Inari in a strangled moan. She had to fight him. She
was
the master of her body, not him. He could not do this to her. “You don’t hear all of them.”

He chuckled again as if he found her futile rebellion humorous. “Your climax is close, Inari.” He slipped his cock ever so slightly from her pussy. “I can feel it building.” He withdrew a little more. “Mounting.” His eyes shimmered red and a low growl rumbled deep in his chest. “Tell me you are scared of me, of what you feel between us, and I will let you come.”

Inari hitched a ragged breath. By the Powers, she wanted him inside her. Was this what it was like to be a prisoner to lust? To desire? Was this what her victims had felt when she was succubus?

Ezryn’s cock penetrated back into her folds with slow force. “Tell me, Inari.”

“Why?” She panted, every molecule in her body tuned to the connection of their sex. Straining, aching.

“Because I want to know.”

She tried to move, tried to slide her pussy deeper down his cock. “So you can use it against me?”

“No.”

The single word sounded…confused. She stared at him, hungering the feel of his penetration and hating herself for it.

Dark eyes looked back at her, an emotion she couldn’t decipher flickering in their black depths. “Tell me,” he whispered, “please.”

“I am scared of this.” The confession slipped from her before she could stop it.

Ezryn’s nostrils flared. “Don’t be.” He lowered his head, pressed his lips to her throat and thrust back into her sex with slow ease. “There is nothing to fear but denial.” He withdrew again, an inch, another, another, before sinking up to his balls in a long stroke. His tongue touched her skin and she trembled, unable to do anything else. “Denying what this is, denying what it will become.” His lips charted a line up to her ear, exploring the dip at her jaw with languid worship. “Tell me to bite you, Inari. With two little words from you, I can not only make you wet, I can make you mine.”

Make you mine.

His statement flooded her with complete and utter happiness. And
that
petrified her. She could never be happy with a vampire. She couldn’t let herself think otherwise.

Make you mine.

She had to stop this lunacy. Now.

She swung her fist into a tight curve, a mere heartbeat before he grabbed her wrist and pinned it to the mattress.

“Why did you do that?” he whispered, grinding her wrists to the bed beside her head.

“You know why,” she snarled back, her pulse pounding. She had to get away. She had to clear her head and gather her defenses. She had to—

“Because I scare you?” he whispered, fangs glinting. He shoved her legs wide with one knee, and Inari choked back a cry as the undeniable musk of her juices threaded through her breath. “Or because what I awake in you scares you?”

She glared at him. “Get off me, vampire.”

Black eyes flickered red fire. “No.”

He smoothed his hand down her body, over her waist, skimming his fingers over the curve of her hip with teasing purpose. She shifted beneath him, trying to escape his touch, trying harder to make his cock sink deeper into her folds. Nothing made sense anymore. One moment she wanted to kill him, the next she was laughing with him, and now here she was wishing him to hell even as she wished he’d take her to heaven. “This is not right,” she moaned.

His stare shimmered red heat again. “I know, but I can’t stop.”

She closed her eyes, a whimper catching in her throat. “I don’t want you to.”

“Look at me.”

His murmured command caressed her control. She opened her eyes and gazed up into his face.

He rolled his hips, sliding his cock farther into her heat with steady force until he was buried completely inside her. She pulled in a slow breath, arching into his thrust until she felt his balls against her ass cheeks. “By the Powers,” she moaned, the feel of him stretching her to the limit already an addictive drug. “This can’t be wrong. Not when you feel so right inside me. If we are meant to be enemies, why do you feel so right? How can fate treat us so cruelly?”

An unreadable tension pulled at Ezryn’s face. He grew still, his muscles tensing. For a split second, his expression contorted with wretched confusion and his eyes were haunted once more. Then a dark glint filled his eyes. “So, does this mean I’ve won, Principatus?”

Inari frowned. “Won?”

His lips curled into a slow, cold smile. “I’m not dust, Inari, and in case you’ve forgotten, I pulled that silver stake of yours from your fingers and have been using your body for my own gratification since.”

Cold shame punched into her stomach. Sickening and chilling. She glared at the man still buried in her sex. “You bastard.”

His smile faded, his expression growing ambiguous. “It would seem so, wouldn’t it?”

He snarled, punching his cock deeper still into her center, thrusting hard, fast. She cried out, a sound part human, part Principatus. She arched her back, bucking her hips into his. Waves of pleasure crashed through her, swept her away. With every thrust, he took possession of her body. With every brutal stoke, he drove her closer to the precipice. She sank her teeth into her bottom lip, curled her fingers into fists, drove her nails into her palms. Fuck, she was drowning.

And still he continued to take her. There was no other way to describe it. He mauled one breast with his hand as he ravished the other with his mouth, sucking on her nipple so hard black blossoms of pleasurable pain erupted in her vision. A throb beat in her pussy. She moaned, overwhelmed by the savage aggression of his thrusts, by the raw pleasure each one created in her core.

She should be fighting him. She should be fighting what he was doing to her, what he’d awakened in her. Yet all she could do was stay alive. Stay alive and drown in the sensations claiming her. Marking her.

“Oh, God!” she called out, her body ablaze, her orgasm about to break. To consume her. “Yes! No! No!”

“Yes!” Ezryn growled, the hand on her breast closing harder, his fangs scraping her throat before, with a roar that made Inari’s belly twist and her pussy contract, he threw back his head and lost all rhythm in his thrusts.

Thick ropes of come burst from his cock. She felt them flood her sex. She cried out, hate and rapture turning the cry to a scream, his brutal climax detonating in perfect sync with her own. “Damn you, you fucking vampire!” she screamed, bucking her hips into his frenzied thrusts. “Damn you, damn you, damn you!”

Liquid fire consumed her, stole her breath, devoured her. She cried out once more, a keening call of release echoed by Ezryn’s deep, ragged groans.

“Damn us both, Inari,” he rasped in her ear, the savage brutality of his possession fading, fading. His strokes grew slower, longer. Gentle. His hands slipped from her body to cup her face with tender care. “Damn us both, for I have no idea how I am to go on from here.”

The proclamation sent a shiver up Inari’s spine. She closed her eyes, his tortured voice and the reverent caress almost undoing her completely. Where
did
they go from here? What came next?

“Open your eyes, Inari.”

She did as he asked.

He studied her face, wordless, brushing a loose strand of her hair from her forehead. She waited for him to say something, anything. Instead, he touched his lips to hers in a kiss so soft she caught her breath. She’d never been kissed so.

“Ezryn…” she began, but he shook his head, snuggling in beside her and pulling her to his body.

“Don’t,” he murmured. “Let’s at least pretend for a while we’re not what we are.”

Tight pressure knotted around Inari’s heart at his words, and she closed her eyes again, breathing in his scent. Yes, let them pretend for a while they were not what they were—demon and demon assassin. Let them have the moment.

And when the moment is over? What do you do then, Inari? What do you do if those random thoughts of yours Ezryn reads reveal what kind of demon you used to be? What do you do if you receive your next orders from the Powers and the bloodsucker still buried in your sex is to be destroyed? What will you do then?

She let out a slow breath and pressed herself closer to Ezryn’s cool body. When that time came—
if
that time came—she would do what had to be done.

As she always had. Since her rebirth as an assassin of the order of Principatus.

Until then…

“I will pretend,” she whispered, sleep reaching for her with surprising strength. She surrendered to its embrace. Willingly.

Chapter Six

Ezryn felt Inari fall asleep before the muscles of her body told him she’d done so. Her breathing grew steady, even and deep, the fingers threaded through his grew relaxed, less fraught and tense. He lay motionless, his arm resting over her chest, enjoying the steady rhythm of her heart pumping her blood through her veins.

Dark Ones, he was confused.

Confused is an understatement, Navarr. How about totally fucked in the head?

He let out a silent sigh. He’d fought his desire for her every second since he’d crossed her threshold. He’d followed her to her home to… Hell, he didn’t know
why
he’d followed her. He just knew he’d been unable to let her run from him. He’d followed her to her home and found her on her bed, her hair a tousled mess, her face flushed, her breasts heaving with rage, and any thought of killing her had deserted him. Nothing mattered. Not that he’d entered her home without invitation, not that he had less than twenty-four hours to kill her, not that hundreds of vampires would be butchered if he didn’t. Nothing mattered but tasting her again, taking her again, filling her body with pleasure as he took his pleasure from her.

The moment he touched her, he knew. Knew he was in trouble. He’d lashed out, been cruel, spiteful, hating himself, hating where his desire for her had taken him. He’d fought himself and ultimately lost. And now he lay beside the very woman he was to kill while she slept in his arms.

She was warm to lie beside, soft where she should be, firm where she needed to be. Her ass, pressed so distractingly against his groin, was both smooth and hard. The muscles of her ass cheeks were sculpted from what he guessed was a lifetime of hard work. All paranormal beings were born close to physically perfect for their genus, but that didn’t mean they stayed that way. Too much hard living, careless health practices or indulgent decadence impacted a being’s body just as it did a human’s. His twin brother was a perfect example of that fact. Ezryn and Haral had been identical in every way until Haral stopped caring about anything else except indulging his most decadent appetites. The last fifty years of overindulgence had turned what was once a lean, muscled physique into something found in the medical journals under
obese
. The overlord’s ass alone was wider than Ezryn had believed could ever be possible for a vampire.

Inari’s ass spoke of dedication, determination and sweat. So did the rest of her, in fact. Her sinewy, womanly muscles were toned and trim and firm with latent strength. Whatever demon she had been before her rebirth as a Principatus, he had little doubt she’d kept her body in sublime form. The power and force of her assassin’s existence could not be solely responsible for such…perfection.

Aren’t you still the slightest bit interested about what type of demon she was before her rebirth? Maybe you should ask her.

Ezryn shifted slightly on the mattress, pulling her closer to his body. He was still interested, although it made little difference to his already messed-up situation, and he would ask her. Just not now.

You could bite her. Taste her blood. You’d know exactly what kind of demon she was once her blood flows over your tongue.

His cock jerked a little at the idea, the base creature he was more than eager to do just that. She would kick his ass if he tried. She’d come very close earlier on. He’d been taken by surprise by her sheer strength and speed. He had little doubt the second his teeth touched her skin, she’d not only wake, but transform into her Principatus form. He didn’t want that. Truth be known, he was enjoying himself too much now watching her sleep in his arms.

A thought occurred to him and he chuckled softly. He was spooning. Who’d have thought he’d ever be spooning with a Principatus? Not just spooning, but reveling in the position, in the closeness. Holding her like this as sleep rendered her calm and still, her neck exposed to him in a beautiful column of creamy skin…