Erotica Fantastica (6 page)

A dark shape blocked out the remaining
light—a figure looking down at her.

Fear built into a solid wall at her back.
Looming and silent, its posture suggested a creature about to
pounce. It made her think of the local TV news, a man scared
witless by what he thought was a big cat, an escaped panther the
reporter had suggested a few weeks back. Was she going to find out
why that man had been so afraid?

The figure moved across her line of vision,
squatted and leapt—on all fours. She gulped for oxygen, her heart
hitting panic rate, and her mouth drying. It thudded down into the
ditch, the dark shape moving toward her, but as it did, light
spilled behind it, haloing it. Moonlight. Had she been out that
long?

"Please, don't hurt me." Her voice was
barely audible.

The creature, whatever it was, started to
move towards her leg, where it was hurting so badly. Oh, no. She
could feel it touching her, moving against her, nudging up the torn
fabric of her combat pants. She writhed when she felt the flap of
torn fabric lifting and then the rasp of a hot, damp tongue over
her sensitized flesh, broad and wet.

Healing you now.

The words shot through her mind as her hands
grasped at the earth.

When she tried to rise up the creature
moved, swift and sure, and began to run his nose along the length
of her leg, toward her groin, like a wild animal in heat.
Vulnerability and humiliation suffused her. Every nerve ending was
wired, her blood rushing. She had to do something. She lifted up on
her elbows and as she did, she came face to face with him.

He — undeniably he — was feral, wild as the
moor itself, but she recognized him as the man she had dreamed
about. He was strong and he captured her easily, his body squatting
over hers, as fit and feral as a big wild cat, pure feline. His
eyes glinted black in the moonlight, his hair long and unkempt
shrouded his face, his clothing covered in a long cloak making his
shape indistinct. He cocked his head on one side, and opened his
mouth, breathing in her scent across his tongue, audibly rasping it
in. Never had she felt so much the object of someone's attention.
Someone, or something. His face, to all intents and purposes was
human, and yet…

"Edgar?" The question came out of somewhere
deep inside her, and she reached out and touched his shoulder,
instinct driving her.

His head lifted and he nodded at
her. That simple sign sent relief flooding through her. His eyes
glistened with some secret inner power.
The spirit of the moor?
The suggestion
whispered around her mind. Was he the truth behind the big cat
reports, this feral, half-man creature? "You are Edgar, and you are
in my dreams."

A sense of calm descended on her,
briefly.

He growled low in his throat, his hands
clutching at her arms roughly, as if pleading for more, her
recognition affecting him visibly. Then his head dropped back, and
she saw his strangely handsome face in the moonlight. His lips
lifted back and he bared his teeth.

When she saw the fangs, her blood pressure
dropped away to nothing.

She was jolted back again barely moments
later, because he hauled her body over his shoulder and lifted her.
Rhiannon was afraid, but clung to him instinctively. Am I dreaming
again? No, the thud of his booted feet on the ground reverberated
through them both. He moved fast, scrabbling out of the ditch with
her body easily latched over his shoulder. His strength seemed
superhuman. He half-ran across the moor and she clutched at the
cloak on his back, jolting, pain and fear coursing through her.

Eventually the path became easier and he
wound his way between outcrops of jagged rock. He paused, then
mounted steps and kicked open a door. Rhiannon clutched at his
back, twisting her head from side to side to catch sight of their
whereabouts. Dark as it was, she recognized it. It was the house
from her dreams, and he had taken her inside.

The long, ostentatious hallway was covered
by several of his easy strides. Agile and fast, he climbed the
stairs and took her to a large bedchamber where he laid her out on
a bed. Candles flickered in sconces on the walls, but he pulled
open heavy velvet curtains and she found herself in the spotlight
of the moon.

When her eyes flashed shut for a moment, she
knew she had been here before. Strange memories fled through her
mind. Memories of waking in this bed, waking in her lover's arms,
happy. The house was well lit and furnished, a happy place filled
with love and laughter. And she saw him, Edgar, as he had been.
Handsome and powerful, dark eyed and determined as he wooed and
seduced her.

This is my room, my home.

How could it be? She forced the strange
images away, denying them. When her eyes opened, a cry was lodged
in her throat.

The light filtered through his straggling
hair, outlining his form. She swallowed hard when she realized how
vulnerable she was. Then he bent over her and lifted the hem of her
shirt, hauling it up and off, baring her flesh as he cast it
aside.

Rhiannon shivered under his scrutiny, her
hands instinctively reaching to cover her bare breasts. There was
no hiding from this man, if that is what he was. His wild aura was
powerful and demanding. There seemed no one else to help her, no
voices came from beyond the walls of the room, and the ghostly
candles offered the only sign of movement beyond him. Did he live
here alone, way out on the moor?

"Please..." Even as she
whispered the plea, she was not sure what it was she asked for. His
presence had affected her strangely. The pulse point deep at her
center thudded violently, stimuli from this strange encounter
weaving its own spell upon her baser instincts.
I should be afraid, I should
try to escape, but I cannot
.

There was an undeniable lure between them
though, a sense of need so primitive and powerful that it would not
be quelled. Rhiannon reached out and touched the side of his face.
The brusque rub of his stubble sent a charge through her
fingertips, startling her. He let out a gruff sound in response,
turning to kiss her fingertips, his hand enclosing hers where it
touched him. His actions set lose a strange yearning deep within,
and memories of the sexual release she had found in her dreams
flooded her, making her body grow hot and tremble.

"Mine." The single word he uttered was
barely audible, delivered in a deep, unearthly rumble as it was.
His hands arrested her waist as he said it, and he narrowed his
eyes. His head lifted, his nostrils flaring as if seeking the
source of a scent on the atmosphere nearby. With one hand he tugged
at her fly, pulling her pants open.

Rhiannon started, shocked to the core and
yet hellishly aroused as his fingers found their way inside her
pants and underwear, and stroked her pussy. Heady desire sluiced
through her groin, her body responding keenly to his attentions. He
hauled her clothing down her hips and dropped down to nestle his
face against the warm, tender spot between her thighs. Rhiannon
swore beneath her breath, her clit throbbing wildly as he closed.
Then she felt the sharp edge of his fangs as his face moved over
her tender flesh and cried out, her body pressed hard against the
pillows at her back.

Undeterred, he threw his head back as if he
had found salvation. Grasping at his throat, he ripped at the
tattered fabric covering his body. With a wrench his cloak was gone
and his shirt was gaping wide. Once his chest was bared in the
moonlight she saw that it was covered the raised tattoo of healing
scars. His hands clawed at them, a guttural sound of pleasure in
his throat.

A sense of identification hit the pit of her
belly, hot and restless.

"Oh, fuck," she muttered, confusion hitting
her when she realized how readily her body was responding to him.
She should be trying to break free. Instead she was noticing how
hot he was. Arousal and fear had twisted together in her veins, a
heady concoction.

His head snapped back as he focused on her
again.

She swallowed her words, wishing she had
kept quiet. He was some sort of wild animal, for Christ's sake.

His eyes were glazed and he looked at her
with purpose, real purpose. He moved closer against her, brushing
his cheek against hers, nuzzling her.

"Edgar?"

When she said the name aloud, he growled,
and the sound was filled with pleasure.

"Edgar." She said it again, and again.

As she did images began to spill through her
mind: memories.

The night he'd first carried her to this
bed—their wedding night.

The night he'd been turned half-feral—and
her fear.

The night her family had taken her away from
this place—and her pain.

He turned his head and brushed her mouth
with hers, gently, giving her the strangest, most seductive kiss,
as if attempting to soothe her. He knew she was afraid.

"Edgar, I remember," she whispered.

She'd been forced to leave him and it broke
her heart. She'd lived a pain-filled existence, her life an empty
void without him. Kept under lock and key by her family, those
people who thought he had driven her insane, those who believed
their duty was to protect her from what she wanted beyond life
itself: her husband. Through many lives over she had felt the pain
and heard his call. Her place was by his side, and destiny had
finally allowed her to make her way back to him. Emotion swelled in
her chest. She put her fist to her breastbone, something he had
done when he first told her he loved her and wanted her to be his
wife.

When he saw that, heat from his body swept
through her, and something else in its wake, a deep recognition of
his nature. Feral, sexual, predatory—overwhelmingly seductive.

"Rhiannon, my love," he whispered, his voice
hoarse from lack of use.

She stared into his black eyes, mesmerized
by him, her heart thudding wildly. She nodded. "Yes, I've come
home."

She could do nothing but whimper in
supplication when he pushed her legs apart. Then the scent of the
moor and something else, like moss, escaped from his hair and
immersed her senses in earthiness. A flood of heat hit her groin,
sexual and fierce. She cried out, not with fear but with relief,
when she felt the warm lap of his tongue pushing into her slit and
riding firmly up against her clit. And then he was moving
rhythmically, his tongue lapping over her sensitized flesh, eating
her up. She arched back against the bed, her body supine and
willing. Each lap of his tongue freed bolts of pleasure deep inside
her. Her juices were running. She could hear his hungry gulps as he
lapped her up, and she was gone on it. He sucked and lapped at her
until she was blinded with ecstasy.

She became frantic as the sensation built
towards its peak. He gripped her hips, latched his teeth over her
clit, his tongue lapping at it from beneath. The riot of nerves
condensed then peaked. Her hips bucked, her climax sending a deep
long shudder through her body. He released her, pushing her legs
wide apart, he moved down where her buttocks and thighs were sticky
and damp with her juices, his tongue lapping all the while,
spinning out the pleasure for her.

Need to feed
. The words whispered around her
mind.

Need you, Rhiannon. You have
come home to me. We will be as one
.

It was then that he bit. Then, when her
groin was hot and heavy with blood and pleasure. His fangs sank
into the juncture of her thigh where the artery pumped fierce and
strong. Pain and pleasure spiraled through her, her body jolting
over and again. She felt him drawing on her life force and she
heard her own moans of pleasure echoing overhead, tasted her own
blood in her mouth as she thrashed and bucked beneath him, the bite
as fiercely climactic as the orgasm had been.

Eventually he lifted his head
and climbed alongside her, his mouth and chin dark with blood. He
placed damp, sticky kisses on her throat, and then rested his face
between her breasts, licking the scratches there. He eased back and
rasped his tongue over her ragged flesh.
Healing you.

She understood. She didn't flinch.

Then came the thrust of his cock. The sudden
stretch and fullness stole her breath. As she sucked oxygen back in
to her lungs, the memories of their frantic lovemaking swamped her
consciousness. It was as if she were back there in his time again,
where she should always have been. As she thought that, so his
visage became more human. Her submission was bringing him fully
back to her. They were joining, not only in body and soul, but in
time and place.

"How I have longed for this," he said, and
began to drive like a man possessed, claiming every part of
her.

The firm thrust of his cock at her center
made her growl aloud, the pressure of his body there too exquisite.
Each thrust bonded them, each grateful touch treasured. The slick
draw of her body on his was audible, their lovemaking filling the
room with heat and noise. Her skin was hot and damp, her clit
thrumming with sensation beneath the weight of his body. She clawed
at him, her hips arching to meet his, the reunion too poignant to
sustain.

At her moment of climax he sank his teeth
into her neck. The dual punctures through her flesh were agonizing,
for a moment, and her body jolted and stiffened, a harsh cry
escaping her. Then his mouth covered the wound and once again he
fed. As he did so warmth and vitality flowed through her, the
innate knowledge that they made each other whole salving her
doubts. All the while his cock maintained its urgent rhythm inside
her, drawing her orgasm out in an unending ocean of bliss. As her
blood poured into his mouth so he climaxed and pumped his seed into
her, a cycle that she instinctively knew would sustain them
forever.