Death's Redemption (The Eternal Lovers Series) (21 page)

The panic laying siege to his soul slowly began to fade the more she touched and petted and cosseted him. Her clean, beautiful scent filled his head like a drug, making him dizzy with want and need.

Pulling his head against her breast, she patted his hair over and over until finally all that remained was a razor’s edge of desperate wanting.

This time she was the aggressor. Crawling onto his lap, she spread her legs, allowing just the tip of his swollen cock to rub against the warm wetness of her. He hissed, digging his fingers into her hips, trying to pull her even closer, while also dragging out the moment as long as possible because he wasn’t ready to end it yet and he knew if he entered her, it would be over in a matter of minutes.

“Look at me,” she said, framing his hands with her delicate fingers. She bit her bottom lip before running her bright pink tongue along the seam of it. “Do you see me?” she asked.

Shadow and moonlight kissed the planes of her face, revealed the faint freckles scattered along the bridge of her nose. Her wild mane of blond hair framed her delicate heart-shaped face, and he wondered how he could have been so blind in the beginning.

He nodded, hypnotized as her finger grazed his jawline over and over. “I see you.”

Her smile was radiant and then there were no more words as she lowered herself, slowly, inch by torturous inch, down the length of his cock.

Death. A stigma. A blight on the world. That’s what his kind was, even within faerie. They did the job no one else wanted to do, but once the job was done, once the kill was over and they were no longer needed, none wanted to be around them.

Adrianna hadn’t known what he really was. She’d loved the titled man she’d thought him to be. She’d loved him, he had no doubt, but she’d loved the position in society a marriage with him would have brought too.

Mila stood to gain nothing with him. There was no guarantee he would save her. She’d been a fighter and loner most of her life.

He flexed into her body, seeking and receiving absolution. She was so clean. So pure. Burying his face in her neck, he pumped in and out, hissing at how tight she was, how her inner muscles clenched him like a wet fist. The sensation was incredible and he hissed again, gritting his teeth as his stomach tightened with the first stirrings of climax.

Lifting his face to her lips, she breathed against his mouth. “Give me all of you, death. I can take it.”

It was more than he could bear. A rushing tidal wave of energy filled his cock and he squeezed his eyes shut as the very soul of him seemed to drain from his body into hers. She howled, giving in to her animal nature, tossing her head back and looking like some wild Valkyrie of legend as she came, before finally passing out on top of him and breathing heavily.

Breathing easier than he had in decades, he held on to her, still joined to her body, reluctant to release her just yet. Pushing the hair out of her sparkling eyes, she laughed. “I think I just woke the neighbors.”

His lips twitched. “Nearest neighbor is more than twenty miles down the road.”

“Did I really just howl? My god, that was”—she snorted adorably and shook her head—“insane. I don’t think I’ve ever howled before.”

“You haven’t been shifter long. In fact”—he circled the base of her breast with the pad of his thumb—“I think you’ve definitely got more shifter than vampire in you.”

“Oh yeah?” She arched a delicate brow. “What makes you think so?” She kissed his nose before finally standing up from him.

Arms feeling strangely bereft without her in them, he leaned back against the headboard and tucked his hand behind his neck. “You kept sniffing me.”

“Sniffing you!” She twirled at the kitchen sink, a look of delight mixed with mortification scrawled tiny laugh lines around her eyes. “I didn’t even.”

Ready to continue their playful banter, he was silenced when the familiar fire rushed down his left arm, turning his hand to bone. Scowling, he shot up from the bed.

Mila pushed off the counter, looking around. “What’s the matter?”

Realizing something had just died, but not sensing the presence of a mortal, Frenzy shook his head.

“What’s going on, Frenzy?” she asked in a hushed tone as she walked to him and moved onto a corner of the bed, sitting on her knees as a visible shiver rippled down her spine.

Holding up a finger to his lips, he strode to the front door. This cabin was so isolated it may as well have been on another planet. “Something has died. Stay where you are, I’m going to investigate.”

Opening the door, he psyched himself up for whatever might greet him. A full moon cast its luminous light around the front porch, giving everything a hazy lavender appearance. The death was so recent there wasn’t an odor of decomposition; the only thing he smelled was rodent.

Frowning, he glanced down on the porch itself and finally chuckled as he stooped over to retrieve the furry body of a squirrel. Lifting it by its tail, he turned to show it to Mila. “Just a squirrel.”

Nodding, she smiled back at him, relief evident in her gaze. It took him only a moment to walk the squirrel far enough from his cabin that his hand could then return to flesh.

Coming back inside, he washed up.

“I didn’t know your hand turned when there was no human soul to harvest,” she said casually.

“Our hands turn whenever we’re around death. But it’s gone now. I saved the day.” He grinned and she laughed.

A second later, eyes twinkling merrily, she said, “Now, about that sniffing thing…I think you’re lying.”

He snorted, crawling back onto the bed with her. “You did. I think you like my scent, little shifter.”

“I think you stink, faerie; you smell like squirrel.”

“Stink!” He feigned indignation, then, taking her shoulder, he maneuvered them until she was once again tucked beneath his body, and he was already hard for her again.

He enjoyed this side of her, this laughing, smiling side. It was as if they’d mutually decided to get along. It was refreshing and made him see her in a whole new light.

“Umm. Is that normal?” She peeked down between them, where his cock brushed against her center. Biting her lip (he was recognizing it as a habit of hers when sexually aroused), she wiggled deeper, eliciting a moan from him. “Didn’t we just?”

“We did.” A wicked grin stole across his lips. “But I’m not human, O’Fallen. Faerie sex is the best sex out there, or hadn’t you heard?”

Groaning, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Good, because I’m still so freaking horny. I thought it was just me.”

With a growl, he latched on to the side of her neck with his teeth in a gentle (by immortal standards) bite. “Then let me scratch that itch, shall I?” He swirled his tongue around her fluttering vein.

“Oh gods, yes,” she sighed and he slipped inside her, feeling as if the world had finally righted itself.

She was perfection. Her scent, her body, her smiles, her moods, even her sass…He found he liked it all.

They made love into the wee hours of the dawn.

The Morrigan stared at the shadow as it danced and swayed before her throne. “You killed the butcher. Why?”

The creature hadn’t taken on form yet; she was still just an inkblot of shadow. “Because he was useless. The seer is no longer in San Francisco. I did not need him for cover,” she hissed. “Where is my morsel, Queen?”

The seething mass of darkness expanded and The Morrigan lifted her head, realizing there was a problem: the creature was growing stronger by the day. Death’s kiss hadn’t drained her nearly enough; in no time she’d be back to hunting the seer, and The Morrigan couldn’t have that.

Knowing her options were limited, the queen knew there was only one way to regain firm control over her creation. As much as the thought rankled.

“Do you even know?” the shadow taunted, her voice like a blast of arctic spray.

Hissing, the queen gripped the rails of her throne and sat forward. “I know where she is. Be prepared.”

Standing, The Morrigan strode for the door of her chamber.

“Where are you going?” the shadow demanded.

And then a bolt of raw, sizzling power blasted The Morrigan from behind, a darkness that tried to leech its way inside her. Eyes going wide, The Morrigan wrapped her fists around the darkness trying to worm its way inside and tossed it to the ground.

Twirling, she glared haughtily at her creation. The shadow swayed, giving her a mocking, menacing glare. It’d tried to taste the queen’s soul. Had she been stronger, who knew what could have happened then.

“Do not ever think to defy me, shadow; you’ll find me to be a much more formidable foe than your puny seers.”

“Then get me the girl.”

Spine ramrod straight, the queen bit down on her cheek hard enough to draw blood. Revealing her hand too soon would ruin any chance of success for her plan to come to fruition. She gave the shadow a smile of teeth and menace. “Just be prepared for my call.”

With that, she walked out to see a woman about a box.

The woods around the cabin were the murky twilight of predawn when Mila finally emerged from their sex nest. She smirked, her body finally sated after four hours of petting, touching, and moans.

Sometimes it felt like she’d known Frenzy for an eternity. The days of constant bickering and squabbling seemed miles away.

He was lying in the bed still; he’d not wanted her to leave his side, but unlike him she wasn’t ready to lie down and close her eyes. The world was too alive, too full of noise to let her rest. There was now no denying that things were definitely changed between them. Good or bad, she wasn’t exactly sure. It was odd to her to think where her life was now.

Here she was standing in the center of a crowded redwood forest, staring up at the tree line and waiting for the sun. Vampires couldn’t greet the morning, but she wasn’t a typical vampire. There was shifter in her too, courtesy of George. At first she’d hated what she’d turned into.

But barefoot and naked, she felt free. The cool air caressed her skin, the gentle berry-laden breeze curled through her hair. Taking a running leap, she jumped into the branch nearest her, at least thirty feet up, and did it with ease. Grabbing on to the corrugated bark, she drew her hand down it over and over, touching it as if for the first time.

Noting that the bark wasn’t just rough darkened wood as she’d once viewed it when a human, but that it was also full of life. It was nourishment for the colony of ants that made the tree its home.

She played with the rough texture of the bark, watching as the ants milled in uniform from one knot to the next. A low droning rang in her ears and when she sniffed she smelled the wet mulch of a burrowing grub deep inside.

The velvety navy sky began to gradually turn a light lavender. While she would never have chosen this life for herself, it wasn’t altogether terrible either. Now that she finally let it sink in that there’d be no going back, she was determined to make the most of this life. For however long she had it.

Her thoughts drifted to the shadow. This quiet interlude couldn’t last, it wouldn’t. She knew that. Mila closed her eyes, trying in vain to think of any alternate plan to heading into faerie. But if Frenzy was right, and The Morrigan was the one who’d created the shadow, there really was no choice but to beg her help.

Instantly the feeling of hard eyes on her made her whirl around in a crouching stance, fingers curved downward with suddenly elongated claws. But what was staring back at her wasn’t at all what she’d expected to find.

It took her brain a moment to process that it wasn’t the shadow she was staring at, but a woman so breathtakingly beautiful that it was almost unbearable to gaze upon her for long.

Dressed in a robe of midnight silk with thousands of small diamonds inset within it, winking and sparkling as she neared, the woman was hovering in air, not standing on a branch as Mila was, and looking around at the canopy of trees with curious, bright ruby-red eyes.

Her hair was thick, interspersed with threads of red and black. The red gleaming like fire, the black like rich oil. It curled around her oval face becomingly. A patrician nose and full, red lips had Mila realizing this could be none other than The Morrigan herself.

She gasped, opening her mouth and ready to cry out to Frenzy.

“I wouldn’t, dear.” The Morrigan smiled. But it wasn’t a pretty one: it was full of sharp teeth, and the way her lips curled up at the ends made Mila think of the devil incarnate.

The Morrigan could kill her with a whisper of breath. There was none in faerie as awe-inspiring or frightening as the queen of darkness and shadow.

“What…do you want with me?” Mila grabbed her chest, wishing like hell for the millionth time that she could read her future as easily as she could others’. That somehow she could have known the queen was headed her way, that she and Frenzy could have prepared themselves for this.

She blinked, a befuddled look on her face. But Mila wasn’t fooled in the slightest; The Morrigan was never confused.

“What I’ve always wanted with you. Your talents, of course.”

“How did you know where to find us?”

“Us?” She quirked a brow. “Quite a proprietary statement. You do realize”—she took another step closer, causing her robe to flare out around her knees—“that Frenzy belongs to me.” She tapped her chest with a red-painted nail. “They all belong to me.”

Again she gave her a vicious grin of sharp teeth.

There wasn’t much Mila would ever back down from; her hot Irish temper rarely allowed it. But even she wasn’t stupid enough to tangle with the goddess of strife and war.

“Frenzy is my guardian; it’s all I meant by that.”

A look of annoyance flashed so quickly across the queen’s face that Mila doubted whether she’d seen it at all. Because now the queen looked smug and self-righteous. “I allow him to stay with you out of the kindness of my heart, you see.”

Quicker than Mila could track, the queen was no longer standing in front of her, but now she was beside her, and latching on to Mila’s shoulders, dragging her nose through her hair and down her neck before setting her quickly aside with a powerful shudder.