Sharing Sirius (5 page)

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Katya scanned the emails and flagged the ones that needed responding to. Then she did a search for reviews on last night’s shows. As always, there were the detractors who didn’t like the music or the half-dressed, heavy-eyeliner look. So last decade, apparently. Yet there were millions who disagreed.

Women loved Lucinda’s Lover.

Vampires loved whatever was theirs.

She opened a couple of online newspapers and read the entertainment section. The launch of
Deception
seemed to have gone down well. And the free single,
Gutted,
was getting airplay and rocketing up the charts.

Aidan would be pleased since it was one of his compositions. He’d written it during his wife’s fight for life and subsequent transformation into a Were-seal. Despite the obvious difficulties with a Vampire-Were relationship, they were going strong.

She smiled as she read about the success as if it were her own…well, it kind of was. Owen ran the band and she helped. She’d been part of two albums. Her breath hitched in her throat. If the next couple of days didn’t go well, all that would change. She could lose her job as well as Owen and Jack as friends. The imagined loss pierced her heart and she knew she’d never be able to resign. She’d be here until Owen told her to leave.

The next review stopped her cold. The only thing that scared Vampires in this day and age was the media noticing when they didn’t age. With all the technology, staying below the radar was becoming harder—even since she’d been alive, she’d noticed the changes. For the Lucinda’s Lover guys, it must be a real shock they were no longer able to move town and start again. These days, Fendrake had to update driver’s licenses and adjust birth certificates on a regular basis.

This article included photos from ten years ago. A comparison of each band member. While hairstyles had changed and the number of piercings Etienne had varied, none of them had aged a day.

“Ah crap.” That was not going to go down well. In fact, Owen wasn’t going to hit the roof, he was going to go through it. They’d always been so careful to keep the performance separate from their lives so they could walk away and disappear. But if the media was noticing their persistent youthfulness, it was going to spread. “Oh no.”

This time cold pinched her heart and didn’t let go. Lucinda’s Lover was going to have to end. The one thing Owen loved above all else, the one thing that was keeping him connected to the world was over. Without music, he’d become lost in the ennui.

“Did we not get glowing reviews?”

Katya glanced up and couldn’t find a word to say.

Owen stood in the doorway, looking nothing like his onstage persona of Sirius in the photos. She preferred the man to the showman…although she didn’t mind the leather pants. He strode into the room and turned the laptop to face him. He read the article, his lips thinning. Katya said nothing.

He grunted and turned the computer back around. When he looked at her, there was resignation in his eyes. “Well, I guess that was our last album.”

“I’m sorry.” It was lame, but it was all she could manage.

“It had to end. We all knew that.” He shrugged. “Besides, Etienne and Aidan want to spend more time at home.”

“And you?”

His eyes lightened a fraction as he looked at her, then he blinked and they were back to normal. “It’s probably a good time for me to take a break.”

“Really?” She spoke too fast. That was the last thing she’d be recommending. Owen needed to immerse himself in living.

“You and Jack have been talking about me.” He tilted his head, but he didn’t seem annoyed. “Where is Jack?”

“Sleeping. He was up all night working,” she added as an afterthought. Then regretted it as Owen’s shoulders dropped. Had he hoped Jack would be downstairs to greet him?

Then she realized Jack’s absence was deliberate. This was the opportunity she had to take. But her mind was on the dhampir upstairs sleeping. He knew what needed to be done and he’d left the door wide open, giving her as much room as she needed to win Owen over. She prayed Jack was right and this would work and Owen would find a reason to go on if he had the two of them. Would she be able to live with herself, knowing that when Owen wasn’t with her, he was with Jack?

Was some better than none?

She swallowed her doubts. She’d wanted Owen for so long and here he was and she wasn’t moving. She had to take the first few steps…then maybe she could convince Owen that Jack should be involved…that he wanted to be involved even if he didn’t want to admit it. And that way neither of them would feel pushed to the side. In her mind it worked perfectly even though she’d never done anything as daring in her whole life.

“Jack is concerned.” She stood up and walked around the desk, her fingers trailing along the wood. Smooth as silk, it would be cool against her skin.

“Are you?” His gaze tracked the movement of her hand. The color faded from his eyes as desire rose.

“I want to bite you. I have for years. Every time you sit near me, all I hear is your pulse.” She glanced up at him from under her eyelashes and hoped she sounded seductive and not desperate for a taste of her boss—or worse, like a groupie. Owen had never been keen on them, not like William.

“Do you know what the ennui is?” He ran his fingertips up her arm as if he couldn’t resist touching her any longer. Maybe he couldn’t, as his body sought out what it needed.

Katya nodded, her mouth dry even as her fangs ached to lengthen and slide into his skin. The heat in her belly coiled and tightened. She could have him…but could she pay the price? Did Jack looking the other way make what she was doing any better, or worse?

“Then you know I have it.” He leaned against the desk. Talking about what could kill him as if they were discussing potential venues.

“It can be controlled.” She stepped one leg between his and let her hand rest on his thigh, trying to act as if she knew exactly what she was doing. Her blood was rushing through her body and her heart was beating too fast. Lust or nerves, it didn’t matter, she couldn’t back out now or everything would be lost. Owen would be lost.

He touched the pulse in her wrist. His fingers circled over the vein, sending shivers of desire over her skin. But he frowned as if concentrating on the simple motion. “And if I don’t like the solution?”

“How do you know if you haven’t tried?” She lifted his hand and brought it to her lips, kissing his knuckles. Despite the life he’d lived, there wasn’t a scar on them. No one would put him at a day over thirty-five.

Owen lifted his gaze. While his eyes were lightened with lust, his dark eyebrows were drawn together. “You know what it involves?”

“Yes.” Before she could stop herself, she nipped the tip of his finger. Blood welled in a single ruby bead. She swept it up on her tongue, not sure what to expect from the blood of an ancient Vampire.

Where Jack was sweet, Owen was earthy and heady as if she was tasting each year of his life in a single heartbeat. It was overwhelming and intoxicating and added fuel to the simmering lust running through her veins. A moan escaped her lips. She’d wanted him for so long and now he was hers if only for this moment.

Owen shuddered, his eyes closing for just a breath as if he were fighting against the desire to feel her teeth sink into his skin. But she heard the change in his heartbeat and knew he wanted this as much as she did.

But beneath the rush of etheric there was something missing from the taste of his blood. She licked the cut again, trying to work out what was strange.

“You can taste the change,” he said without emotion, as if he were resigned to the fact he could die of boredom. It didn’t seem fair that he should have the ennui. He had everything so many people, Vampire and human, would want.

“Yes.” That was it. While heady and rich, it lacked the spark of life she was used to in Vampire blood. He was dying, but not in any way a human doctor would recognize.

He pulled her into a tentative kiss, learning the shape of her lips, then he drew back. His eyes pale as he studied her. “This will hurt him.”

Katya nodded. “But he is reconciled with this. Losing you will hurt him more.”

“So either way I wound him. I am damned no matter what I do.” His fingers caressed her hip, bringing her closer millimeter by millimeter. So slow she wanted to scream in frustration. “I don’t know what to do. What would you do?”

“You’re not damned. You’re lucky you have people who care.” She caressed his jaw and stole another kiss, ignoring the warning in the back of her mind that they would all get very badly burned. “I would fight to live.”

“Regardless of consequence?”

“Consequence is better than nothing. You can’t fix anything if you’re dead.”

He closed his eyes briefly. When he looked at her again, all color had drained from his eyes and she knew he’d made his decision.

Owen’s hand cupped her butt and he pulled her close in one swift move. Her breath hitched as their hips connected, the hardness of his cock pressing against her belly. She moved against him, wanting to feel his shaft against her pussy, teasing her clit. It had been a while between lovers and her body was craving the touch of a man. Jack had awoken the need, but Owen would fulfill it. Not for the first time, she thought that Jack should be here too.

But maybe he could handle the thought better than the reality. Could she handle the reality? The racing of her heart almost drowned out the drumming of Owen’s. But she couldn’t stop now; he was almost hers after years of dreaming and three years of sitting at his side.

She kissed down his neck and ran her teeth over his skin without leaving a mark, even though she wanted to let her fangs slide in. Her tongue circled his pulse. Teasing. It was the exchanging of the etheric in their lovers’ blood that kept old Vampires protected from the ennui. One lover was no longer enough for Owen. And she had the advantage of being young, very young in Vampire terms. A small smile curved her lips as his pulse jumped beneath her mouth in a tempting rhythm. He tilted his head, offering her a clean bite. Giving in.

Her teeth scraped against his skin and he groaned with longing.

“Bite me so I can forget who I am and what I am doing.” His voice was laced with longing mixed with something much darker.

It was enough to bring her back to reality. She’d wanted him for so long, kept the lust tied up so it wouldn’t get in the way of her job. Now that she could let it go and indulge, it wasn’t as easy as she’d imagined, because in her imagination Owen had been single and lusting after her. It had been easy.

This was complicated.

She drew back a fraction so she could look into his eyes. They were pale with lust but tempered with the knowledge he was doing this because there was no other way for him to survive the ennui.

Did he really want her or was she just convenient? She ran her hand down his cheek, his stubble rough against her fingers.

“Do you want me or would any set of fangs do?” Her tongue flicked against her teeth. She wanted to taste him again and make him call out her name. She wanted to call out his name as he bit her. She wanted him to admit that he did want her, for her, not because of what she could offer.

He blinked, and for a moment the brown deepened as reason overrode lust. “You. I wanted you the first time I saw you.” His fingers traced her jaw as he tilted her chin and placed a delicate kiss on her lips. “If Jack trusts you with his heart, then I can trust you with mine.”

She’d never thought that she held both their hearts in her hands. Her heart stilled as she realized the enormity of what she was doing. The implication and aftershocks would stretch far beyond this room and last for far longer than any of them could imagine, but neither Owen nor Jack were thinking that far ahead.

It wouldn’t be just once. She would become a part of their lives.

“Jack should be here,” she murmured against his lips. Jack shouldn’t be stepping aside, he should be involved…but maybe that was one of her fantasies interfering and she should concentrate on one thing at a time. Jack was right in that at the moment this was about Owen.

Owen’s fingers threaded into her hair and he touched her lip with his fang. Her knees weakened as she waited to feel the delicate rush as he cut her lip, but none came. He worked his way down her neck, using her hair to adjust the tilt of her head, and she let him, melting in his hands the way she’d wanted to for so long.

His fangs pressed against the base of her throat. She swallowed as expectation built. Her blood was hot, ready to be spilled. She pressed her hips closer, seeking release.

“I’ll talk to him,” Owen said against her throat. The rumble of his words reverberated through her body. “He thinks he’s doing the right thing.”

She was about to ask what he meant. Then he bit.

And all she could do was gasp as a wave of pure desire rushed through her, tightening her nipples into hard buds and pooling deep in her belly. The need to feel his cock in her pussy overrode all other sensation as he turned a simple bite into something much more. She felt the sweep of his tongue and the pressure of his lips on her skin.

Her body moved against him, her hips rocking as if she could find release. She’d wanted him for so long and he wanted her. Her hand slid along his leg to cup the hardness of his shaft straining against his jeans. Then her fingers found the fly and she worked open the button and zip, freeing his shaft. His flesh was hot in her hand as she stroked the length of his cock, her thumb sweeping the smooth head, finding the slit.