Darkness Captured (6 page)

Seemingly, she was content with the arrangement. Her radiant smile greeted Simon each full moon, her gaze never straying from his tall frame. She spent long hours in his bed. Wherever they went, they touched, her small hand cupped inside Simon’s.

At the end of the moonphase, Simon’s happiness retreated, held at bay for another month while he tended the kestrel like a precious pet.

In her bird form, Madeleine wasn’t sentient, but she was affectionate toward her master, never straying from her perch but calling to him as he passed.

She would be devastated when she awoke and discovered he wasn’t there. Alex didn’t know how he’d console her.

“I should be the one to go,” Nicolas said softly as he stepped beside him to watch the star-crossed pair. “Chessa will have you to care for her and the child. I’m expendable.”

“No one is expendable.” Alex cut a look to the side. “Besides, she’d never accept me in your place. She’s made it perfectly clear that you’re her mate. She loves you. And do you really think Mikaela would be happy with the arrangement?”

“Do you think Miki would know she ought to be unhappy?”

Alex gave Nicolas a glare. “I won’t bring another woman into our relationship. It’s too new. And I find myself … satisfied.”

Nicolas lifted an eyebrow, but didn’t comment. He cleared his throat. “Still, we need the mage more. I should go.”

“I know it’s hard. I’d go in Simon’s place, but he knows what’s coming. He’ll find a way to come back to us. He has to.”

“And if he doesn’t,” Nicolas said slowly, “don’t you think he’s prepared you well enough to survive without him? You have all the memories of every one of your ancestors. Didn’t they give you any wisdom at all?”

Alex grunted. “Don’t be an ass. I’m just like you.” He allowed a tight smile to curve his mouth. “Only more evolved.”

Nicolas’s white teeth flashed. “And you won’t disintegrate into dust when you bite it.”

“Are we going to compare the size of our cocks next?”

“Don’t have to. Chessa has already said she couldn’t tell much of a difference.”

Alex clapped Nicolas’s shoulder. “She’s being diplomatic to save your pride.”

They both chuckled at the thought of the stubborn vampire ever learning to curb her tongue long enough to show even a little tact.

“We should leave them alone,” Alex said, steering Nicolas from the field.

“So much has happened—and it’s only been one night.”

“I know.” Alex paused, and then mentioned what worried him most. His stomach tightened. “I wonder if they’ll run into Inanna.”

Nicolas’s eyes darkened. “Pray that they don’t. She’d use them to serve her own purpose. She must never come back.”

Alex watched Nicolas from the corner of his eye and cleared his throat. “I haven’t asked how you feel about that. Inanna did turn you.”

“She turned me, as well as my sweet wife, and she talked Anaïs into committing suicide when the Devourer impregnated her. I have no soft feelings left for her. But I know her better than anyone.” Nicolas’s upper lip drew into a snarl. “She’ll want vengeance.”

“She can want all she likes.” Alex scoffed. “Her sister rules that realm, and Irkalla has plenty of her own reasons to make sure Inanna remains disappointed.”

“I swear you’re sounding more like Simon all the time.”

“Wise?”

“Pompous.”

Alex snorted, another smile creeping across his face. “We should check on the wolves.”

“Are you afraid they’ll try an attack from inside the compound?”

“No,” he said thoughtfully. “I trust Guntram.”

Nicolas arched an eyebrow. “Because he gave his word?”

“Because he’s in love with Gabriella. He won’t risk losing her forever to satisfy his thirst for my blood.” He shook his head. “Not yet, anyway.”

With a final glance into the night sky at the kestrel tipping her wings to glide on a breeze, Alex left the field, heading through the edge of Inanna’s fragrant garden. At the door of the barracks, they passed several members of the security force who’d been assigned to watch over the wolves housed in their barracks.

“Any problems tonight?” Nicolas asked the first man he passed just inside the door.

A shudder shook the man’s shoulders. “Other than wolves stinking up the place?”

Alex leveled him with a quelling stare.

The team member straightened his shoulders. “No problems, sir,” he said, correcting himself. “Everything’s quiet.”

“I’m sure you’ll keep it that way,” Nicolas murmured. “Their leader?”

Alex and Nicolas followed the young
Revenant’s
gaze. They found Guntram in the barracks’ arsenal, running his fingers across the serrated blade of a military knife. His lips twisted into a snarl when he spotted them.

“Have you found everything you need?” Alex asked.

Guntram’s gaze lifted to Alex’s for a moment, then went back to the knife, but not before Alex noted the derisive curling of his upper lip.

“I want a word with you,” Guntram said, sliding the knife into a sheath on his belt. “Alone.”

Nicolas stiffened. “That’s not going to happen.”

Worried Nicolas and the wolf might come to blows again, Alex gripped his friend’s arm. “Go to Chessa. There’s nothing more for you to do here.”

“I’ll be outside,” Nicolas said between his teeth.

“Nic, she’s damn close to dropping that baby, and you haven’t spared her more than a few minutes all night. Go to her. Guntram won’t kill me.” His gaze shot to the warrior. “He tried it once. He knows it’s not that easy.”

A scowl furrowed Nicolas’s forehead. “You’ve met before? Something else you didn’t think I needed to know?”

Alex smiled at Guntram, whose mouth was firming into a straight line. “Long story. I’ll fill you in later.
Go.”

Nicolas opened his mouth to say something else, and then closed it. “Later.” He aimed a warning at the
were
and left.

Alex strode toward Guntram, then took a seat on a folding chair beside the gun rack. “You wanted to talk.”

“I know what you are,” Guntram said. “And that you’re the same Born she tried to murder.”

Alex almost smiled at Guntram’s terse delivery. The man didn’t waste words. “It was a long time ago. In Germany. She thought I’d betrayed her.”

“You had another lover. You did betray her.”

Alex shook his head. “I seduced a demon to get something that had been stolen. It was important.”

“A wolf would have found another way.”

“Because you’re loyal to your mates?”

Guntram nodded sharply.

“Vampires don’t value fidelity,” Alex said, keeping his tone even. The more time he spent with Guntram, the more he wished they weren’t standing on opposite sides. Here was a fiercely loyal man. Gabriella was luckier than she knew.

“Why should I trust your word of honor if you don’t know what honor is?”

Alex took no offense, and relaxed, meeting the other man’s glare with his expression clear of any answering animosity. “Fidelity isn’t prized out of necessity,” Alex said quietly. “Our kind must feed—on blood, on lust. We can’t fill our appetites in a monogamous relationship.”

“So none of you remain true to their mates?”

Alex thought of his mother and father, the only blood mates he’d ever known to foreswear sex with anyone else. “It’s not unheard of,” he admitted.

“But it’s inconvenient.”

“I suppose you’d see it that way.”

“Gabriella is better off without you.”

“I’m sure right now that she would agree.”

“When I bring her back,” Guntram said, his expression turning to stone, “I won’t stand aside to let you have her again.”

“Are you going to claim her?” Alex asked, not responding to the unspoken challenge. Guntram’s fierce passion was interesting given Gabriella’s equally fierce independence. “She’s sworn since the day I met her that she’d never take a wolf mate.”

Guntram’s gaze slid away. “If I return with her, I won’t give her any choice.”

Alex smiled. Guntram would do it to ensure her safety. Or at least that’s what he’d tell himself. And having Gabriella mated would certainly remove a fly in the ointment, from his perspective.

“Guntram, if you want her, I can help.”

For Gabriella, the passage of time was measured by the pounding of her heart as blood pumped through her body in a heavy, wanton beat. Her skin, tender still from the lashing she’d received by the vines, was hot and exquisitely sensitized to every caress of the Master’s hands and lips. Her reddened nipples never receded, remaining hard and distended. Her clit stayed engorged and throbbing. She restlessly scissored her legs, craving friction to heat her core.

He’d carried her to the bed, water streaming from their bodies, and laid her in the center before coming over her. Just as she’d envisioned, she’d watched him over his shoulder in the mirror as each movement of his shoulders and back animated the dragon tattooed on his back, making the wings rise up and down and the tail undulate with every flex of his buttocks. He’d fucked her again on the bed, without preliminaries, thrusting straight, powering so hard her lungs expelled air in harsh gasps.

Feeling languid, boneless, and drifting toward sleep, she moaned when his large hands parted her again, and she gazed down between their bodies, watching as he smoothed over her skin, his burnished hand caressing pale, pink curves.

For the first time, she noted the ring he wore on one hand. A raised crest with a six-sided star, a large bloodred cabochon at the center and small multicolored jewels studding each point of the star—all sitting atop a crudely made setting that looked forged from brass and iron. Light reflected off the center of the cabochon, and the smooth stone seemed to glow for a moment until he moved his hand again and the illusion faded.

She quickly lost interest in the ring when his hand slid down her belly and cupped her pussy. Two fingers eased inside her, and she sucked in a breath that hissed through clenched teeth.

“Have I hurt you?” he asked, his raised brows showing no particular concern, only curiosity.

“No, but your fingers feel cold inside me.”

“That’s because your woman’s channel is hot.” Long, thick fingers swirled inside her. “And wet. I find I’m very, very thirsty.”

She shivered at the intimacy that had grown quickly between them, emphasized by their soft whispers and reinforced by the steady sundering of her inhibitions. Even the gauzy fabric he’d drawn down around the bed deepened the feeling that they were the only beings who existed on this plane.

Her breath caught at the dark promise in his eyes as he slid down the bed and settled his torso between her thighs. When his head dipped toward her sex, a thin, ragged moan slipped between her lips.

His gaze met hers again. Black pupils dilated until only thin streaks of gold framed them, and then his tongue flicked out, longer than she’d expected and indented at the tip. The flicker touched her clitoris, stroking it, and her back arched instantly. Another flick and he stroked between her folds, prodding her entrance to lap at the cream sliding down to greet his wicked demon’s tongue.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and almost didn’t recognize the creature lying there with her thighs splayed. Her hair was matted, her eyes overlarge, her mouth red and stretching as she moaned.

His head, circling between her legs, was dark; his thick hair slicked back. Powerful shoulders, bracketed by her thighs, tensed and eased as he plied her with sinuous rasps of his long, slick tongue.

Her body followed his movements, her hips lifting and falling, letting him coax her into full arousal again. When had she surrendered everything to him? When had her plot to seduce him completely devolved until she was the one enraptured? Trapped by her own sensual nature and his natural domination, she’d folded easily.
Too easily.

She dug her fingers into his scalp and pulled his hair, trying to pry him from her cunt. However, his tongue thrust more insistently inside her, reaching deeper, sliding, fluttering until it found the bundle of nerves a third of the way up, the rounded knot of her inner pleasure center.

Her body vibrated, quivering hard at his internal caresses. He touched nothing else, concentrating his efforts there until her moans grew thin and broken.

When her release spiraled out of control, her thighs clamped his shoulders hard, and she tugged at his hair, fingers clenching in time with the strongly pulsating caresses that squeezed up and down her vagina.

A low, throaty groan emanated from his mouth still locked against her sex, and she shivered at the sensual satisfaction she’d given him.

Then he withdrew his tongue and sat on his haunches between her legs, holding out his hand again, fully expecting her to acquiesce.

Again? Sweet fuck, will he ever be satisfied?
Just the thought of this powerful demon’s insatiable appetite for her flattered her ego, suppressing the alarm jangling at her conscience. She forced herself to hesitate, invocating her proud core to resist, while ignoring the part of her that was dying to surrender and bask in the lush desire he’d created.

One dark brow arched; his eyes narrowed. Remembering where she was and with whom, she gulped down her fear and slowly lifted her hand to place her palm against his.

His fingers clasped hers hard and dragged her upward to her knees.

They faced each other, both breathing hard, his mouth gliding into a smile that made her quiver anew, this time with dread. “What do you want from me?” she asked, her voice overly loud in the stillness surrounding them.

“Your surrender would be a nice start.”

“I’ve done everything you wanted.”

Dark eyes flashed. “You’ve been playing at obedience.”

“My actions aren’t enough?”

His fingers slipped to her wrists, encircling them like steely cuffs, and her heart pounded harder against her chest. “You think you can toy with me, that I can be fooled into complacency.”

Gabriella bit back a groan that he’d read her so well. Had her expression given her away? She wasn’t accustomed to schooling her features or her mouth. “Can you read my mind, then?”

“I can read the defiance and pride in your eyes. You betray yourself in so many different ways.” Drawing both of her wrists together, he raised them above her head and reached for some silken cords dangling inside the curtains.