No Rest for the Wicked (38 page)

fingers and softly sucked the tips into her mouth, wetting them. She placed them against

her clitoris, showing him exactly what she desired.

Shuddering, he strained every muscle in his body not to spill that instant. When he stroked

her there, lightly pinching, she went wild, twisting and writhing on the bed.

“Drink, Bastian,” she said between panting breaths. “I need you to.”

Need me to drink? He never thought he’d hear those words, and his fangs ached in

response.

Still thrusting, he clutched her slim shoulders, brushing his lips against her neck. When he

pierced her skin and sucked, she cried out, and his eyes rolled back in his head. He

growled against her flesh when her body tensed in a shuddering orgasm.

He withdrew his fangs, throwing his head back. Her blood raced through him, burning and

pulsing, making him mad with lust. Her sex squeezed him, demanding, hungry. A haze

seemed to cover his vision. He felt as if something inside him had been unleashed, and

knew he’d need to take her hard.

When he pulled out and turned her around, she gasped in surprise and shivered. Clasping

her to him with a hand over her front and the other cupping her sex, he pulled her bodily

back, then bent her over the bed, her breasts pressing into the mattress. Readying.

Positioning her.

He clenched her hips, pinning her in place to receive him as he eased his shaft back inside

her. He withdrew slowly, then returned in agonizing strokes, soon finding a driving rhythm

that made her moan.

“Harder. Please! ” When he heard the thunder drumming outside, he plunged fully into

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) her.

Building, faster, until he was slamming into her, his skin slapping hers, using his whole

body to take her. He couldn’t believe he’d bent her over the bed like this. Couldn’t believe

each time with her was more pleasurable than the last.

The headboard was banging against the wall, and still she demanded more.

With a brutal yell, he gave it to her. He held nothing back, fucking her with all his strength

as her cries grew louder.

When he reared back, he could see her face turned to the side, her lips parted, her eyes

silver. Her arms were stretched out, tensed in front of her. “Bastian,” she cried softly,

stunned as well. Her reactions and the lightning outside were his permission.

“I’m going to be inside you all night. Drink you all night.”

“Yes!” she cried. “Anything, Bastian... ”

Anything. No constraints. Utter freedom. He gave himself up to it. Years of doubt

evaporated. The past grew dim against a future with her. “You need this?” he grated.

“Yes!”

“You need me?”

“Oh, yes, yes!” She stretched her arm back, offering her wrist to drink from as he

continued to buck against her. When he pierced her flesh again, she instantly came with an

anguished cry. He could no longer resist the pressure welling inside him, so he took as he

gave, drawing her blood from her body as he emptied his seed hotly into it.

Once he could come no more, he stretched over her, still thrusting slowly.

His breaths ragged, he rasped at her ear, “You’re mine now, Katja. And I will never let

you go.”

40

T he first Lore battle Sebastian would ever experience would be a clash that had occurred

a millennium in the past, and was one of the most notoriously brutal ever seen.

Tonight he and Kaderin would retrieve her sisters, fully expecting to land in the middle of

that war.

They’d strategized about where to use the key, deciding on the flat, mainly because the

coven would try to kill him at Val Hall. She wasn’t too keen on being in the city, though,

in case the two didn’t “travel forward well.”

Kaderin was nervous about seeing them after so long and had endeavored for an hour to

find clothing that didn’t look too modern. As he’d waited, he’d sat back against the

headboard, watching her dress, thinking over the last two days while his arm had healed.

“We’re going to need more time,” she’d told him after the first night.

He’d grinned. “I trust my nurse.”

During that time, when he hadn’t been inside her, they’d talked about everything. She’d

told him what her sisters had been like, and he’d revealed what had happened with his

family. He felt he could tell her anything, and that she had completely opened up to him as

well.

He was learning all about her—and learning how satisfying it was simply to live with her.

At his leisure, he got to kiss her ears just to make them twitch. He could study her delicate

hands for what seemed like hours, enclosing them completely with his own and running

the pads of his fingers over them. He got to watch her sleep—that is, when he wasn’t

exhausted beside her. His Bride was as insatiable as he was.

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) She was abandoned, free with her body, and gave him anything he wanted, anything he’d

ever fantasized about. When he’d admitted how little experience he had, she’d seemed

determined to give him everything he’d missed.

In the end, their time together confirmed what he’d known from the beginning. He never

wanted to part from her.

The only obstacle to his happiness was the knowledge that the key did, in fact, work.

Of course, he was relieved that Kaderin would have her sisters, but he couldn’t help

thinking about what it would have been like to go back for his own family and see them

once more. Maybe if he had done things differently, he and Kaderin both could have had

the opportunity...

“Are you ready?” she asked, finally dressed in jeans and a longer jacket, with her sword

strapped over her shoulder.

He nodded and rose to collect his own sword. When he crossed to her, she held up the

key with raised eyebrows. “You sure you want to go? It’s going to be intense.”

He put his shoulders back. “I was on a battlefront for a decade, remember?” He tucked

her braid behind her ear.

She didn’t look convinced. “Don’t trace in front of my sisters, please. And try not to open

your mouth much.” When he raised his brows, she said, “Your fangs. I don’t want them to

see your fangs. They really will try to kill you.”

“You’re beautiful when you’re nervous.” He gave her a brief, deep kiss.

In a breathy voice, she said, “You’ve got your sword ready?”

His lips curled into a grin.

“Just... just don’t get killed, Bastian.” She swallowed. “Okay?”

He took her free hand, pressed his lips to her palm. “I’ll endeavor not to.”

As he’d done before, she offered up the key. A portal opened. They met eyes, then

stepped through, hand in hand.

Into hell.

As though in a quaking black dome, thunder like cannon fire shook the earth. He’d seen it

in her dreams, but nothing could prepare him for the reality. Lightning slashed across the

sky. All around them, Valkyrie shrieked and pried heads from vampires. Vampires ripped

the throats out of any they could overpower.

He’d never seen a Horde vampire in person. They were worse than her dreams. Red-eyed,

insane.

“I see them!” she yelled, starting for them in the valley below.

But he was aching to save a Valkyrie from a vampire twice her size who had beaten her

down. Kaderin must have seen the look in his eyes. “I know, Bastian! But it won’t change

a single thing—except that you can die. Or we won’t make it back to the door with them

both.”

He nodded. “I’m right behind you.” He still traced and beheaded the vampire from behind.

Kaderin frowned at him, but he knew she wasn’t displeased. Then they hurried to the

flatlands where her two sisters clashed with vampires, battling with long swords, blood

splashing up their legs.

When Kaderin stopped and stared at them, swallowing, Sebastian recognized that they

were similar versions of her, though one was taller and one shorter. And their coloring

was different. One had reddish blond hair, while the other’s was darker brown.

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) Kaderin’s eyes were glinting, her breaths shallow. He curled his fingers under her chin,

coaxing her to face him. “Let’s get them back.”

Kaderin nodded, caressing the side of her cheek against his fingers. Then she turned to

them and called in their mother’s tongue, “Rika, Dasha, come!”

They both looked to her, then back at the fray. “We cannot leave!”

“Come now!”

Rika’s eyes widened at her command, and Dasha’s narrowed, but they did hurry to her.

Kaderin had to remember that she had been sweet to them, gentle with them—

Just before they reached each other, a vampire charged toward Kaderin. Sebastian met

him, striking viciously, clearing the way for them.

When Kaderin stood before her sisters, at last, she couldn’t find her voice. With a

trembling hand, she reached out to cup Dasha’s stubborn chin, then brush Rika’s glossy

dark hair from her eyes. “I-I missed you two so much,” she finally managed to say as her

tears began to fall.

“Missed us?” Dasha said. “When did you dress differently—and so strangely? And who’s

that male?”

“There’s no time for that, Dash.” Kaderin forced herself to be blunt. “The two of you die

in this battle. In ten minutes, a vampire takes your heads. And it is my fault.”

Dasha opened her mouth to interrupt her, but Kaderin raised her hand. “We must make

this fast. I live one thousand years in the future now, and I’m taking you forward to my

time tonight. And I’m so sorry, but you’re going to lose those years. Forever.”

Without blinking an eye, ever-practical Dasha said, “Seems to me that they will be lost as

well if we are dead.”

Rika put her hands on her knees, bending over and coughing blood. “Kader-ie, I don’t

understand.” She’d already been hurt worse than Kaderin had ever known. “How is this

possible?”

“You know extraordinary things happen in the Lore—we’ve seen them before. We’ve

experienced much stranger than this,” Kaderin said. “You’re just going to have to trust me

now because if we don’t get through a certain door, very quickly, I could cease to be.”

“If we leave the battle, how could we show our faces again?” Dasha asked. “We’d be

known as cowards. You could think us cowards.”

“No,” Kaderin said. “You would be remembered as dying valiantly in battle.”

“No one would curse our names?” Dasha asked.

“Never, I vow it.”

Dasha turned her attention to Sebastian. “And the man?”

“His name is Sebastian. I... I love him.”

The sisters both tilted their heads, watching him fighting as bodies were piling up around

him. He was outright glorious, powerful, everything any of them had ever dreamed of in a

male.

And they had no idea they were ogling a vampire.

Dasha whistled. “There is much to love, sister.”

Rika coughed more blood. “He is beautiful, Kader-ie.” She leaned on her sword, the

ultimate sign of weakness—something one simply did not do if one could possibly prevent

it. “Then take us forward. Another adventure.”

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) Dasha remained unconvinced. “There’s no peace in the future, is there? We still fight

vampires?”

“Yes, there are still bad vampires to fight.”

“Bad vampires? As if there exist good ones? How strangely you speak.”

Rika stumbled. “I’m dizzy. Call for your man.”

Kaderin dropped her sword and scooped her up. “Just a bit longer, sweet.”

When all around Sebastian lay an assortment of dead vampires, he spotted the past

Kaderin fighting.

And stared transfixed.

She wore a golden breastplate and carried her sword and a whip. Though injured, she

continued to fight savagely, shrieking her fury and orders over the deafening thunder.

Pointing her sword, she directed bowswomen with their flaming arrows and witches with

their spells, as they hurtled their strikes in bright trails at the enemy.

She had blood running from her temple and the corner of her lips, and her blond hair was

braided for battle. Her eyes were silver. She was absently marking the vampires she’d

killed.

He was awed...

A massive vampire with a battle ax traced behind her. She hadn’t sensed him in the melee.

Sebastian tensed to trace—

“Bastian, no!” Kaderin screamed over the clamor from behind him. He turned, saw her

handing the wounded sister into the other’s arms. Kaderin ran for him. “I’ll kill you!” He

finally let her lead him away, though it went against everything inside him to leave her

here.

When they met the sisters at the doorway, Kaderin said, “And believe it or not, I get out

of that scrape. He ended up wearing that ax as a hat all night.”

Sebastian yanked her to him and kissed her, pride filling him. “You were magnificent.”

“Were?”

“Are. Always will be.”

“Bastian, we’re going back.” She gave him a watery grin.

They’d saved them. He had them all here and felt twenty feet tall.

Yet then he spied her sword glinting twenty feet away. “Your sword? I can get it—”

“Leave it, Bastian. It’s not important anymore! We have to go!”