Nathan's Mate

Chapter 1

He came to her in the dark as he always did.  She couldn't see his face, but he was tall and dark, his shadowy presence casting off no illumination. She waited for him impatiently, her body burning for his possession and her mind consumed by need. 

He slipped into her bed completely nude.  Her hands ran over his massive, muscular chest, needing to feel his body and know that he was really here in her bed.  She gasped as his strong arms pulled her into his body, leaving no space between them.  It was exactly what she wanted.  Her body was bare and they touched, skin to skin, nothing between them.

He took her mouth as though he owned it.  She welcomed him like a flower seeking the sunlight.  His masterful touch set her body and soul aflame, his seeking hands over her naked body eliciting a small moan that was muffled by his mouth.  Her hands roamed, running over his broad, sinewy shoulders and back as she continued to lose herself in his embrace. 

His powerful, muscular leg parted her thighs and she could feel her dewey, wet core slam hard against his sturdy limb.  Grinding her pussy against the steely surface, she hungered for release. 

She didn't know if the need was hers, his or a combination of the two...but it didn't matter.  They were both caught in a web of desire that they couldn't escape.  She started rotating her hips against his leg, breaking away from his mouth with a whimper to pant against his shoulder. 

"Please. I need you,"  she whispered achingly, needing him to take her. 

He stroked and teased her breasts, lightly pinching her pebble hard nipples with expert fingers.  His tongue traced her earlobe and the side of her neck, finding every sensitive area of her skin. 

She reached between them, trying desperately to grasp his cock and place it near her empty channel.  He snatched her seeking hands by the wrists, pinning them above her head.  He held them tightly with one large hand while the other snaked between her legs.  She wanted to protest.  She needed to keep moving against his leg like a bitch in heat until she came, but he pulled it back, denying her satisfaction. 

His hand traced her wet folds lightly as she arched her back, begging silently for more significant contact, pleading for his touch in the place that would send her over the edge. 

"So hot.  So wet.  So needy.  Call for me and I will make you come until you are begging for mercy,"  she heard his gruff, low baritone murmur in her ear.  "Let me sate you."  

She groaned, the sound of his erotic voice making her pussy flood with even more fluid.  Her head turned from side to side, frustration threatening to take her sanity.

She yanked at her hands to free herself even as her hips rose to his teasing touch between her thighs.  He held her snuggly by her wrists as his other hand circled her clit through her slick and slippery lower lips. 

She jerked as his finger toyed with the protective hood of her bud, lifting it, brushing lightly over the exposed nub. 

Yes.  Yes.  Right there.  More.  Please, more. 

His scorching mouth descended on her right nipple and she shuddered from the contact. 

She had to climax before she went mad. 

Before she could orgasm, the touch of her lover faded.  Her mind screamed in protest even as he faded away and her mind became alert and...she woke up. 

Sasha Taylor woke slowly, coming out of her foggy, erotic dream in a frustrated stupor.   

Shit!  She sat up, her body drenched with sweat and her heart pounding so hard she could hear it drumming in her ears.  These damn horny dreams were going to kill her.  This was the second one she had experienced in the last four days.  They were coming more often, more vivid, keeping her in an almost constant state of arousal.   

Her whole body was soaked, including her dripping mound.  She flopped back against the pillow and considered trying to satisfy herself, but she already knew it was a quick fix that wouldn't last.  All it would take was one thought of her dream lover and she would be right back in the same situation of frustrated lust. 

Unfortunately, she couldn't stop thinking about him.  He seemed to be with her constantly, both irritating and stimulating her.

Sasha knew instinctively that it was her vampire mate.  She had known she was the mate of a vampire since the mark had appeared on her hip around her eighteenth birthday, which had been ten years ago. 

Shocked, appalled and disgusted, she had never mentioned it to anyone. 

A mage with a vampire?   It was a taboo.  The mage hated the vampires and to mate with one would get her nothing but ostracized from her fellow mages forever.  Her parents were both mage as was her sister, Regan.  Vampires were blood drinkers, barbarians that took their mates by force.  None of her family or mage friends would accept her vampire mate.  Hell...she didn't want a vampire mate.  Who wanted to be mated with a domineering, overbearing savage?

Sasha rolled out of bed and grabbed some clean clothes as she headed toward the shower.  She would shake this off and get to work.  She and her sister Regan were business partners in their jewelry business.  Sasha did the designs and Regan did most of the intricate work of putting everything together.  Their pieces were sought after and it kept them both very busy and brought in a good income. 

Call for me and I will make you come until you beg for mercy.

Sasha shivered as she pulled her soaked nightshirt over her head in the bathroom.  She could still hear his "pure sex" baritone whispering to her.

If the man in her wet dreams was her mate...he had a body made for sin and a voice that could almost arouse a woman to climax with just his words. 

Disgusted with herself, Sasha turned on the water, making it as cold as it could get without causing her hypothermia.

*****  

Nathan Hale had woken up from his day sleep in a bad mood that had just seemed to continue through the rest of the evening as he roamed the city. His rest had been disturbed by images and dreams that rarely invaded the day sleep of vampires.  It made him edgy and uneasy.   

His brother Liam was busy with a healing and Nathan had left his other two brothers behind, using the excuse that there wasn't much to do but patrol for the fallen.  There had been no reported sightings.  

He was hunting alone tonight and although he didn't mind roaming for fallen vampires to kill by himself, his brother's "love fest" was getting on his nerves.  Ethan and Rory were getting careless, so engrossed with their love and lust for their mates that they missed the little things that could get them killed.  He wasn't sure he wanted either of them on the streets right now.  Maybe once they got over their rapture honeymoon phase they could finally go back out with him to dust the fallen.  In the meantime...they were acting just plain stupid. 

Nathan shook his head as he cruised one of the lower class areas of Denver, wondering how any vampire could act so witless over a woman.  He liked Brianna and Callie well enough, but it was as if finding their mates had lowered Ethan and Rory's IQ by at least forty points.  If finding a mate made a vampire into a total idiot, he was damn glad he had never found his own mate. 

Chances were that he never would.  At over six hundred years old, his time had passed.   He hadn't felt sexual desire for over five hundred years and probably wouldn't know what to do anymore if he did.  He wasn't sure if the loneliness and yearning ever went away, but he tried to bury it. 

Most of it was covered by hatred for the fallen.  His main mission in his eternal life was to grind every fallen into dust that would blow harmlessly away in a strong breeze.  They had killed his parents while Nathan had been made to stand by helplessly and wait for news of their demise.

But...no longer. He was an elder now and at the helm of The Vampire Coalition.  He spent almost every waking moment burning with hostility and loathing for the creatures that had taken his parents away from him and his brothers.  He wanted vengeance, no matter how long it took or how many fallen that he had slay to feel a sense of peace again.

Nathan slipped around the corner of an alley, entering the street.  Two gang members that appeared to be looking for trouble eyed him with sleazy smiles.  He scowled,  daring them to approach, almost looking for a fight.  He had already fed, but he'd enjoy thrashing the two punks just trolling for innocent victims to rob...or worse.  Unfortunately, they averted their eyes and walked on.   He was just cursing his bad luck that they had avoided him when he felt it. 

Fallen.

They were close, and the evil sent an electric wave down his spine.  He started moving quicker than the human eye could see, tracing the feeling of malice and mayhem.  What were the bastards up to now?

He halted abruptly as he took in the scene before him.  He had found the fallen...and they weren't alone.  His temper flared and his eyes were nearly black with rage as he saw that they were tearing at a young woman who struggled between them.  The fuckers had shredded her shoulders from holding her with their razor sharp claws.  She had slashes all over her body, leaking blood that left a  ruby puddle at her feet, but the woman still was kicking and fighting, yelling obscenities that would make a nun blush.

Nathan yanked a short blade from his belt, unwilling to use anything longer that might hit the woman between the two monsters.  The woman saw him appear behind the fallen that was torturing her, but he held a hand up in a silent signal.  She quieted as he drove the knife into her tormenter's heart.  The fallen crumpled to the ground, squirming like a worm on a fisherman's hook. 

The creature that was holding the woman let go of her body and she too crumpled to the ground.  

Nathan's eyes flashed with enmity as he met the red-eyed stare of the fallen.  He knew he had to dispatch the slime quickly and get help for the female...if there was still even a slim chance that she could be saved. 

He dodged an aggressive attack of slashing claws as the two of them did the death dance.  It was one he planned on winning.  Fury and adrenaline fueled his attack on the hairless, sunken-featured monster, waiting for an opening. 

Nathan stepped close and brought his arm under the fallen's wrists, deflecting his claws as he simultaneously drove the knife into the freak's chest, rupturing his heart.  The fallen hit the ground.  Nathan withdrew his knife as he fell.  He'd be damned if he'd lose a perfectly good knife. He cleaned it with his magic as he re-sheathed the blade at his waist.

Both of the fallen disappeared, leaving only a pile of dust where they had once stood, tormenting a defenseless woman to death. 

Crouching next to the unknown woman, he assessed her injuries. 

"Fuck!," he uttered aloud as he surveyed the slashes and severe loss of blood.  She was breathing shallow and her heart was still beating in a fast, thready rhythm.