Night Reigns (32 page)
“Don’t do that. Don’t twist simple curiosity into something malevolent. Weren’t you curious about Seth and David and immortals when you first met them?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Weren’t you curious about
gifted ones
and vampires? Even humans and their differences?”
gifted ones
and vampires? Even humans and their differences?”
“Yes.” Her pretty features tightened. “But, unlike the first humans I encountered, I didn’t satisfy my curiosity by capturing them and dissecting them while they were still alive.”
Everything within him went cold. “What?”
He could tell by her expression that she hadn’t meant to reveal that and had no wish to explore it further.
“Wait,” he said slowly, reining in the rage and desire to do violence that surged through him. “Before we delve into that—and we
will
delve into that,” he vowed, “come here and let me hold you.”
will
delve into that,” he vowed, “come here and let me hold you.”
She moved almost as fast as an immortal, launching herself into his arms with a force that nearly knocked him over. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she squeezed him tight.
Marcus arranged her thighs on either side of his lap and buried his face in her fragrant hair. A shuddering sigh escaped him. “Don’t think this means I’m not still angry with you,” he murmured, the affection he couldn’t withhold making the words a lie. “You scared the hell out of me last night.”
“I’m sorry. You scared me, too.”
“When I thought I was losing you ...” Drawing away fractionally, he cupped the back of her head in one hand and blended her lips with his own.
Ami kissed him back eagerly, her tongue slipping forward to stroke and tease his.
Fire exploded through his body, turning his blood to molten lava. Her hands sank into his hair, fingernails glancing against his scalp, tugging strands and producing exquisite pleasure-pain.
Groaning, he slid his hands down her back, slipped them beneath her T-shirt to cup her firm, bare ass, and urged her against his erection.
“Take your clothes off,” she ordered, dragging kisses across his jaw, nipping his neck just beneath his ear. “I want to feel your skin against mine.”
Marcus couldn’t comply fast enough, tearing the shirt from his torso with preternatural speed.
Ami rose onto her knees, still straddling him, tempting him with kisses and running her hands all over his naked chest and back as he scrambled to remove his pants, socks, and boots.
As soon as all were strewn across the room, Ami whipped the T-shirt over her head.
Marcus immediately leaned forward, lips fastening on the pink tip of one full breast and sucking hard as he filled his palm with the other.
Skin so soft. A scent that warmed his blood like the most potent aphrodisiac.
He closed his teeth on one taut bud, rolled the other between thumb and forefinger.
Ami groaned, melting against him.
Marcus eased her back down on his lap, teased her moist center with his cock.
“Wait,” she gasped. Her small hands slid down and pushed against his chest.
He drew back, wanting nothing more than to plunge inside her, feel her squeeze him tight.
“Marcus, wait,” she repeated. “I want to taste you.”
The desire within him ratcheted up several notches. “What?”
“Last time I didn’t have a chance to taste you,” she said breathlessly.
“Ami, honey, I don’t think I can wait that long to be inside you. Maybe next time—”
But she was already backing off the bed, kneeling in front of him, and taking his shaft in her hands. A long, slow lick followed.
Marcus groaned. Okay, maybe he could wait.
Every muscle tightened as her lips closed over his cock, then drew him deeper into her warm, wet mouth, tongue stroking and making him jerk with pleasure.
“Ami.” Bracing one hand on the bed behind him, he brushed the other over her tousled hair as she drew on him, every stroke and pull eroding his control until he hovered too close to the edge.
“Stop,” he urged her.
Sitting back on her heels, she stared up at him with passion-glazed eyes and flushed cheeks. “Did I do it right?”
“Hell, yes. But I don’t want to come until I’m buried deep inside you.”
Ami’s breath caught. Even his words made her burn inside.
In one smooth motion, Marcus lifted her, turned, and laid her in the center of the bed. His eyes glowed a bright amber, pure desire now, as he stood there for a moment, drinking her in.
Considering the restrictions with which she had been raised, she should feel embarrassed, but couldn’t, not when he took such pleasure in it. Ami drank him in as well. His muscled chest rose and fell as quickly as her own. His eight-pack abs rippled and flexed, drawing her gaze down to his erection, which boldly strained toward her.
He called it his cock. She rolled the word around in her head, liking it, wishing she weren’t too shy still to tell Marcus to plunge his cock inside her. Now.
Marcus’s large hands shook as they grasped her ankles, drew her legs apart.
Ami’s already fast heartbeat tripled.
His movements agonizingly slow, he pushed her feet back until they were planted on the bed not far from her bottom, knees splayed.
“Marcus,” she murmured, pulse racing.
He gave her a wicked grin. “What goes around comes around.” Then he leaned down, lowered his head, and delivered a long, delicious lick to the heart of her arousal.
Moaning, Ami threw her head back and clutched the covers in fists as his mouth caressed her, rubbing, sucking, and nipping until she cried out, convulsing in climax.
Before she could catch her breath, Marcus flipped her over onto her stomach and knelt between her legs. His hands seized her hips, drew her up onto her knees. Then his cock was probing and plunging inside.
A low growl rumbled from him. “Ami ... you feel so good.”
She would have told him the same if she had the breath to do so. But the pleasure was already building again, growing with every plunge and retreat, the friction driving her mad.
One of his hands trailed up her back, slid around and cupped her breast, squeezed.
Ami arched back against him.
“You like it?” he purred.
“Yes,” she panted.
“You want more?” His fingers teased her nipple.
“Yes,” she pleaded, then moaned when he withdrew.
Again his hands gripped her hips and turned her over onto her back. “I need to feel your arms around me,” he told her hoarsely.
And she needed to feel his weight, pressing down on her, surrounding her.
Marcus met Ami’s burning gaze as he propped himself on his hands and once more sank into her warmth. So tight.
“Closer,” she murmured, eyes glistening.
His own burned as he lowered himself until his chest brushed her breasts with every thrust. Until her arms could enfold him, her small hands holding him tight, then caressing a searing path down to grip his ass and urge him on.
He had come so close to losing her, had thought he
had
lost her. “Ami.”
had
lost her. “Ami.”
She leaned up, pressed her lips to his.
Her legs, those long, luscious legs, wrapped around his hips.
He increased his tempo, moving faster and faster, angling his body to increase her pleasure and speed her toward another climax.
She fell back, breathing hard, emitting little moans of excitement.
Her muscles tensed. He heard the skip of her heart just before she screamed his name, her body pulsing as she came, clamping down around him and squeezing until he joined her with a shout.
Utter bliss.
Ami’s whole body tingled as Marcus sank down upon her. When he started to move away, she locked her arms around him and held him in place. “Not yet. Just a little longer.”
He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “I’m too heavy for you.”
Rolling onto his side, he took her with him.
Ami draped a knee over his hip, wrapped an arm around his waist, and settled her face on the pillow, inches away from his.
His iridescent amber eyes held such love as they wandered over her features.
“You didn’t leave me,” she whispered, a tear spilling over her lashes.
Cupping her face, he brushed the moisture away with his thumb. “I’ll never leave you.”
Overwhelmed by the events of the past twenty-four hours, Ami buried her face in his chest and wept.
Chapter 15
Marcus stared up at the ceiling, toying with the silken strands of Ami’s hair. Darkness had fallen. They should both don their hunting gear and head out to find the damned vampire king and track down Richart, though Marcus had no idea where to begin doing the latter. Yet, they lingered in Ami’s rumpled, full-sized bed. Too small for Marcus’s height. His feet hung off the bottom, but he’d never felt more content.
Ami was curled up beside him, an arm and a leg draped across him. Her tears had long since dried. Tears that had made his chest ache. He never wanted her to need such catharsis again and intended to do his damnedest to see she wouldn’t.
It was odd. He had slept with many women during his long existence but, until now, had never wanted to linger afterward. That hollow sensation had always settled in as soon as the pleasure faded, driving him to leave as quickly as possible. But with Ami, it was different. She filled that hollow place within him and left him feeling as though he could spend the rest of his life like this, curled up in bed with her, talking quietly or just enjoying her presence.
“Where do you come from?” he asked.
Ami stirred against him beneath the sheets. “Your astronomers call my planet a jumble of numbers and letters, but—in our world, in our language—we call it Lasara.”
“So it isn’t in our solar system?”
“No. Our system is on the opposite side of what you call the Milky Way Galaxy.”
“So far,” he marveled.
She nodded.
“Are there others like you here on Earth?”
“No. I’m all alone.”
Marcus didn’t like the hint of melancholy that entered her voice and tightened his arms around her. “Not anymore.”
She hugged him back. “I wasn’t supposed to come here, you know. I defied our king to do so.”
“Your country is a monarchy?”
“Our planet is a monarchy, all people united and led by one ruler.” Tilting her chin up, she gave him a rueful smile. “My father, if you can believe it.”
Marcus stared at her. “Your father rules your entire planet?”
She grinned. “Yes. He’s very good, too, always placing the needs of the many above the needs of the few. There is no war or famine, very little crime.”
“It sounds like a Utopia.”
“It is.” Her smile faltered. “Or it was ... until a new ally outside our system alliance betrayed us.”
“System alliance? Don’t tell me there’s more than one populated planet in your solar system.” Weren’t life-sustaining planets supposed to be extremely rare?
“There are three planets and four moons that support life in our solar system, thanks to our advanced methods of terraforming.”
“You can do that?”
She nodded. “We’ve been doing it for more than a millennium.”
“I can’t even fathom that.” Damn. Her people sounded very advanced, which he supposed they would have to be for her to survive traveling such a long distance.
“How long did it take you to get here?” he asked.
She pursed her lips. “About thirteen months by your standards.”
His mouth fell open. “That’s all?”
“Wormholes shortened the travel time significantly.”
“This seems so unreal. But not in a bad way,” he hastened to add when her brow furrowed. “Does your father know you’re here?”
“I don’t think so. One of my brothers would have come for me by now if they knew what had happened.”
“What did happen? Why did you come here if your planet is such a Utopia and your father was against it?”
She hesitated. “Lasara is in trouble. Emissaries from another solar system approached us, wanting to join our alliance. They were our equals in technology and seemed a peace-loving society like our own. There was nothing about them that suggested deceit. Nothing in their thoughts. Nothing—”
“Wait. Lasarans are telepathic?”
“Yes, but not like Lisette and Étienne. Or David and Seth. We don’t automatically hear the thoughts of those around us and have to learn to tune them out. For us, telepathy is like ...” She shrugged. “It’s more like whistling, an acquired ability that we must concentrate to use.”
He thought back to the many times he had wished her gone those first few days of their acquaintance, the times he had stripped her bare and indulged in silent, lustful fantasies before he had even kissed her. “Have you read my thoughts?” he asked warily, wondering why she hadn’t cold-cocked him at least half a dozen times.
She frowned. “Of course not. We don’t just go around reading people’s thoughts at will.” He knew a number of immortals who did. “It’s an invasion of privacy. We only do it in critical situations that warrant such action, like to determine whether someone committed a crime.”
“Or double-checking a new ally’s intentions?”
“Yes.” She squinted her eyes at him. “Why? What would I have seen had I read your thoughts?”
He smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. “Things that would make you blush, little one. If you’d like a taste, read my thoughts right now.” He filled his mind with images of all the titillating things he wanted to do to her.
Color bloomed in her cheeks as she buried her face in his chest.
Chuckling, he kissed the top of her head. “This is all very new to you, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “Intimate contact of any kind isn’t allowed between unmarried men and women on Lasara. Once they reach puberty, single males and females aren’t allowed to be alone together unchaperoned.”
“Really?” It didn’t seem as shocking to him as it might to men born in the past century because the same had been true amongst the nobility of his birth time. But he felt uneasy, knowing he might have inadvertently pushed her to do something she wasn’t ready for or that went against her beliefs.
She tilted her head back, cheeks still rosy. “I was ready, and I don’t regret it.”
Smiling, he gave her a featherlight kiss. “Just let me know if anything I do ever makes you uncomfortable.”
A twinkle entered her eye. “I’ve helped you kick dozens of vampire asses. Do you think I would remain quiet if you did something I didn’t like?”
He laughed. “No, I don’t.”
She smiled. “I like that you think I’m strong.”
“You
are
strong.”
are
strong.”
She shook her head. “I lived such a sheltered life on Lasara.”
“What happened there? What did the new allies do?”
“They released a virus we had no defense against. And we have exceedingly strong immune systems. There is very little illness on Lasara. When some of our people sickened after coming into contact with the Gathendiens, we thought the Gathendiens were carriers and hadn’t realized they would infect us. It was airborne and extremely contagious, but really seemed no more dangerous than one of the mild strains of your influenza virus. No one died. Most recovered in two or three days. We thought little of it and went forward with a treaty.”
“And?”
“Over the next twenty years the Lasaran birthrate dropped to almost nothing.”
He frowned. “It left you all infertile?”
“Only the women. And most of the females born
after
the epidemic are, too. Of the few who are fertile, most have been unable to carry a baby to term even with assistance. If one of our other allies didn’t possess incredible medical knowledge and hadn’t come to our aid, no children would have been born in the years since.”
after
the epidemic are, too. Of the few who are fertile, most have been unable to carry a baby to term even with assistance. If one of our other allies didn’t possess incredible medical knowledge and hadn’t come to our aid, no children would have been born in the years since.”
Ami’s people were dying, the victims of a slow genocide. If they couldn’t produce children ...
“How long ago did this happen?”
“Almost a century.”
So Ami wasn’t just a miracle to him, she was a miracle to her people. “How old are you?”
Uncertainty darkened her features. “Forty-nine.”
His jaw dropped. “You’re forty-nine? You look like you’re twenty!” Dismay leeched away the warm contentment Ami inspired. She was already half a century old?
“You think I’m weird, don’t you? Because I was still a virgin?”
“What? No. That didn’t even enter my mind. You said yourself that intimacy is forbidden outside of marriage. And I’m assuming you’ve never been married.”
“No, I haven’t. But you look upset.”
“Aren’t you still reading my mind?”
“No.”
“Ami, the only thing that upsets me about your age is the fact that we’ll have less time together. Unless ... Can you be transformed?”
“No. Seth said it would be too dangerous because we have no idea how the virus would affect me. That’s why he told you not to bite me.”
His spirits sank.
She smiled. “But you’re wrong about how much time we’ll have. Lasarans are very long-lived.”
“How long-lived?” he asked doubtfully.
“My father is 422. My mother is 367. And their hair is just beginning to turn gray.”
Marcus couldn’t believe it. It was too good to be true. “Are you saying you could live centuries?”
“Yes.”
An elated laugh burst from him. Tightening his hold, he rolled with Ami from one side of the bed to the other until helpless giggles tickled his ears and the covers tangled about their entwined legs like a cocoon. When they came to rest, Ami stretched atop him with a grin, her hair a tangle of sunset shades.
Marcus smoothed a hand over the soft curls. “I didn’t even ask if you intended to stay,” he said, voice hushed.
She nodded, but lost her smile.
“Because you
want
to or because you have no other choice?”
want
to or because you have no other choice?”
“Before I met you,” she whispered, “I would have said it was because I have no choice.”
But now she wanted to be with him? “I interrupted you. I’m sorry,” he apologized. “Tell me the rest. Tell me what happened on Lasara.”
She slid off him and curled up on her side. Marcus rolled toward her, once more settling his face on the pillow near hers.
“The fact that there is no war on Lasara doesn’t mean we lack the technology or knowledge to wage it. We, along with our allies, rid our system of the Gathendiens and succeeded in driving them from our corner of the galaxy.”
“Good.”
“But ...”
There was always a
but.
but.
“One of our allies—the Sectas—indicated that the Gathendiens were now working their way toward your solar system.”
Just what they needed. Vampires
and
Gathendiens.
and
Gathendiens.
“The alliance debated whether or not we should warn you.”
Marcus leaned up on an elbow. “What’s to debate? Why
wouldn’t
you warn us?”
wouldn’t
you warn us?”
She nibbled her lower lip. “The Sectas have been studying your planet for many of your millennia—It was actually through them that I learned several of Earth’s languages, including English—and ...” She sat up, tugged the covers over her breasts. “Their conclusion was that humans are a primitive species that thrives on greed and violence. You appear to our allies like locusts, plowing through your planet’s resources and destroying everything in your path with no real thought or plans for the future, constantly warring with each other, wanting to conquer each other and acquire more land and wealth. True peace has never reigned on your planet as it has on ours.”
Marcus instinctively wanted to object, but ... Well, Ami had been on Earth for a couple of years now. More than enough time to have seen that low opinion confirmed.
“Though reluctant, my father and his panel of advisors ultimately agreed with our allies and decided not to warn you because you would most likely react to our sudden appearance in your world not with welcome and acceptance, but with violence and fear.”
“Yet, you’re here.”
She nodded, forced a smile. “And your people met me with violence and fear.”
“Ami.”
She shook her head. “I was so naive, Marcus. I thought the alliance was wrong. I thought you should be warned, that you would welcome our aid. And I hoped ... I thought we could help each other. The population on your planet has reached a crisis point, far exceeding what the Earth can comfortably sustain. We could turn your deserts into lush, productive farmland and help you reduce hunger. We could solve your energy crisis, eliminating entirely your need of fossil fuels and eradicating the pollution, illness, and wars they spawn. We could eradicate disease, extend your life spans, help you cultivate peace.”
“Sounds good to me. But what would you get out of it that made you take the risk?”
“Women outnumber men on your planet. I thought if the comfortable, peaceful existence of Lasarans appealed to them, some might ...”
Understanding dawned. “Agree to serve as surrogate mothers?”
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