Tribes of Man: The Beginning [Tribes of Man] (Siren Publishing Classic) (16 page)

Of course the lesson that Kristano learned from this was that there was no way to know when a surge of power would be needed, and he had to keep up his strength. He had been too low on power before this incident and was nearly powerless now. If they were attacked, he couldn’t defend them.

“Take it from me.” Raina’s sweetness was always a shock to Kristano. She walked toward him and tilted her head, as though inviting him to bite.

Kristano could feel Gideon’s resistance to the idea and was surprised when he didn’t loudly object. Regardless, Kristano rejected the offer. “That wouldn’t be a good idea, Raina, but thanks anyway.”

“Why not,” Raina swallowed audibly. “It’s OK if it hurts a little. I can take it.”

Kristano let out a sardonic laugh. “Trust me, it wouldn’t hurt.” Kristano heaved himself out of the seat.

“I assume it wouldn’t do the same to me,” Gideon said, holding out his wrist. “You can take mine.”

Kristano recognized the huge concession being made. He also knew something Gideon didn’t. By offering blood, Gideon was, in effect, swearing his fealty to him. He was giving Kristano power over him.

“I don’t think you understand. If I take your blood, I can always find you. I can link with you more easily.” Kristano felt it only fair to warn him.

Gideon only nodded.

“I insist on helping,” Raina chimed in stubbornly. “I
want
you to be able to find me and connect with me easily.”

Kristano felt the conversation between Gideon and Raina going on in their heads. “Right now you’re talking, and I can’t hear you. If I feed from you both, I’ll be able to hear it.”

Gideon looked at him, nervous but determined. “What do we do?”

Kristano motioned Gideon to sit in the chair he just vacated. After he settled, Kristano said, “You’re going to want to climb into his lap, Raina. He’s going to have some energy to direct to you.” Gideon looked shocked. He was about to protest when Kristano added, “I could hide the pleasure from you and blank your mind totally, but that always felt like a form of mind rape to me. It’s why I usually feed off women. You’re going to want to have Raina with you.”

Raina was blushing furiously as she climbed onto Gideon’s lap. She sat across him with an arm looped behind his head.

Kristano could feel both their embarrassment and hesitated for a moment. He thought that in the midst of this, they would lose touch with their embarrassment, but afterward it would come back tenfold.

Gideon thrust his arm out, “Do it then!”

“Kiss her,” Kristano commanded back. When Gideon just looked at him instead of obeying, Kristano shrugged.

Kristano grabbed Gideon’s wrist and gave it a long lick. His saliva acted as a painkiller for the skin so that his teeth didn’t hurt. It also had an aphrodisiac quality to it. Kristano felt a bolt of lust and surprise shoot through Gideon’s body. “Kiss her,” Kristano said again. This time Gideon did.

Kristano sank his teeth into Gideon’s arm and felt the warm sweet flush of hot blood slide over his tongue. At first, all he could feel was the pleasure of the blood replenishing his body and fueling his starved magic. Then he became aware of the massive sexual energy pouring out of Gideon. Gideon was practically devouring Raina. One of his hands ran all over her body while he pushed the other wrist harder onto Kristano’s teeth. Pleasure bounced back and flooded Kristano, making his body go hard as well.

After a moment, Kristano knew that he had to stop taking blood from Gideon or he’d take too much. He could also feel Raina’s confusion. She was reluctantly turned on by Gideon’s actions, but she was also hyperaware of Kristano in the room. Kristano took her arm, intending to bite her the same way that he bit Gideon, but soon realized he couldn’t. Her wrist was so small and narrow, he was afraid his teeth would damage her. He could stop her from feeling the pain now, but not later. Instead he rose and moved behind her.

Gideon had already shifted Raina so that she was straddling him on the chair. Gideon saw Kristano take a position behind Raina, and Kristano felt his intention to object.

This is the only way not to hurt her
. Kristano could feel some of the pleasure leech out of Gideon’s body. He was suddenly concerned about his mate. Kristano knew the best way to allay his fears. He licked Raina’s neck, right over her pulse. She groaned. When Kristano sank his teeth into her neck from behind, she screamed with the force of her desire.

* * * *

Gideon was immediately sucked back into the vortex of pleasure. Because Kristano had linked them, Gideon could feel Raina’s pleasure, and more distantly, the fueling of Kristano’s power. Gideon’s need to bury himself inside Raina overpowered him, blocking out everything else. Gideon freed himself from his pants, moved Raina’s panties aside and buried himself in her to the hilt.

Gideon was no longer in control, the physical sensations running through his body overrode his need to take Raina privately. He knew that although Kristano wasn’t participating, he was watching what was happening. Gideon also knew that it was enormously arousing for the other man, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

Kristano’s presence linked Raina and Gideon even further. Gideon could feel Raina’s tight pussy on his cock, as well as Raina’s feeling of being filled. It was overwhelming, and Gideon couldn’t control his need to rut up into Raina. Her continuous groan of pleasure accompanying her pussy’s spasms made it feel like his cock was being massaged by her body. He was grunting like an animal, until finally, he emptied his balls into her.

Raina slumped over him, shuddering, and when Gideon opened his eyes, Kristano was gone.

* * * *

Both Raina and Gideon fell asleep. Passed out from the force of their pleasure was more accurate. When Gideon awoke, he found himself, still semi-hard and still buried in Raina’s body. He thought back on what just happened and realized that he should be wildly embarrassed. He looked around, but still didn’t find Kristano in the room. That didn’t mean that he wasn’t invisible.

“Kristano?” Gideon called softly, so as not to awaken Raina.

“He’s not here,” Raina answered, her voice muffled by Gideon’s shirtfront. She had the ability to sense Kristano, whether he was visible or not.

Gideon felt like he had broken Raina’s trust. He took her like a wild animal, again, but this time, with someone else in the room.

“My God,” she breathed. “That was the most incredible thing that ever happened to me.”

“You’re not upset?” Gideon asked, amazed.

“Not at all, why should I be?”

Gideon didn’t know if she didn’t realize that Kristano was there for the whole thing. He didn’t know if she realized that Kristano had seen the entire thing.

“I knew he was watching,” Raina said, blushing furiously. “Just the thought of it was so hot that I couldn’t stop coming.”

“Really?” Gideon was a little embarrassed that he had forgotten that Kristano was in the room when he had taken her. He found himself feeling sorry for Kristano. All that sexual energy and he didn’t...

“Yes, he did,” Raina said.

“Oh,” Gideon decided to let it go. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it, but considering the power of the orgasm that ripped out of him, he couldn’t find it in himself to be upset. As a matter of fact, the very thought of what happened made him hard again.

Raina shifted on him and gasped as his cock hardened even more inside of her. “You’ve got to be kidding,” she said.

Gideon thrust up into her.

Raina gasped, “Guess not.”

Gideon shifted them so that Raina could lean back against the arm of the chair. They were sitting sideways on the large arm chair. He gently leaned her back and reached between their bodies. Her clit was hot and swollen. He stroked it gently, making Raina shudder.

“I don’t think I can come again,” she said.

“Oh, I know you can come again,” Gideon replied with a diabolical grin.

Gideon rubbed the nub harder while jibbing into her with short hard thrusts. In moments, Raina was screaming out her pleasure. Gideon slowed his thrusts as Raina came down from her orgasm.

“What about you?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” he said, lazily moving in her.

Raina reached between their bodies and wrapped the base of his cock in her thumb and index finger. Every time he pulled out of her slightly, she stroked upward. Her grip was so tight it was just this side of painful. He’d never been jerked off while he was fucking and the pleasure was overwhelming. It wasn’t long before he came again. He felt like his balls were being wrung dry.

When he was done, Raina kissed him softly. Gideon had never felt so loved.

* * * *

Kristano had reappeared in his spacious living room next door. His décor was surprisingly homey, considering that he hadn’t lived in that house very long. He had others around the world, but he had just recently bought this one. He convinced the owners to sell it to him right after Raina was attacked.

Truthfully, he hadn’t thought that the prophecy would happen in Raina’s lifetime, but he needed to make sure that she would be alive to hand down the responsibility of keeper. He had waited so long for the prophecy to begin that he had doubted it would ever happen.

As soon as he had gotten home, Kristano plunged the room into darkness. He needed the quiet of the night to think. He lay down on his couch with his hands linked behind his head. With very little magic, he was able to clothe himself in clean sweatpants and a sweatshirt.

He needed some time alone after what had happened. He’d had sex many times in his long life, but nothing had ever affected him like that. He had a feeling that what he saw was a small taste of what he would have if he found his lifemate.

He wished he still didn’t know.

Thousands of years, thousands upon thousands of years, he existed. He fought in wars, saw the decimation of entire villages by invading armies, watched bodies thrown into the street during the Black Death, saw the results of the atomic bomb, and wondered if the world would destroy itself before Adder had the chance. He’d had sex with more women than he could count and taken blood from even more than that, yet he never experienced the human connection that he did with Raina and Gideon.

He’d always been alone, but he never truly understood what that meant. He’d never been lonely.

Kristano turned on his side and willed himself to sleep.

The dream began the way all dreams seem to...in a corridor. A long corridor with doors off the sides and no one else wandering the halls. Raina could feel a sense of herself, but also she could feel another self. She knew that she wasn’t the one walking down the hallway. Rather, she was hitching a ride with someone else, becoming a mere shadow in his mind. She had the sense that this had already happened, and she was experiencing a rerun.

When he (
they
) reached the end of the hallway there was an open waiting room. A stern faced woman sat behind the desk. In a recess of her mind, Raina recognized her. She was the woman being tortured by Adder in her vision. Raina tried to struggle free of the man’s consciousness, but couldn’t.

“He’s ready for you,” the woman said. Raina could tell that she was relieved that she wasn’t the one going into the office. Given what she saw in her vision, Raina couldn’t blame her for it.

She could feel the dread inside the man about to enter the office. He was nervous. She knew he’d never been on Adder’s bad side because he was only nervous. Raina was terrified.

He (
They
) walked into the office and stood in front of Adder’s desk.

“Director Cascaval, I understand you wanted to see me. If it’s about the Kallan incident, I can’t tell you what happened until I investigate it. It is possible that they do periodic sweeps for explosives and found them. I’m surprised that they were able to disarm them all so quickly, they were set with trip wires, but...”

Adder held up a hand to cut off the explanation. “Do you think I care for your excuses?” He rose from behind his desk and turned to stand in front of it, looking at him (
them
) calmly.

Adder flicked his hand toward the south wall of the room. When he did, the wall disappeared. Raina could feel the man’s amazement. The wall didn’t recede into the background. It completely disappeared.

What was behind it made his (
their
) blood chill. Raina recognized some of the instruments of torture, but not all of them. The man recognized nearly all of them, and, through him, Raina learned more about torture techniques than she ever wanted to know. She could hear him chanting in his head,
He’s just trying to scare me. He’s not going to actually use those on me. No one would remain loyal to him if he tortured them every time they fucked up.

Adder snapped his fingers, and the man (
they
) began moving toward him. Raina hadn’t had any control of the body she inhabited, but the man suddenly found himself also unable to control his own body. He walked toward Adder, but he was trying not to move. Raina could feel his confusion.

“One of the things I told you, Jensen, was that I didn’t tolerate fuckups.” Adder got right into Jensen’s face. Raina felt like he should have known that she was hitching a ride in Agent Jensen’s consciousness. Adder was so close that she could see the striations in his eyes. She was startled to realize that what was about to happen was, to some extent, her fault. Jensen was going to be punished for failing to kill her.

“You didn’t know what you were getting into when you took this job, did you? Just thought that you’d be able to act with impunity.” Looking as intently into Adder’s eyes as she was, Raina didn’t miss the change that took place. His eyes went from ice blue to pure black. His canines extended.

Raina heard Jensen’s scream, even though it was only in his head. She began to shake. It was as though she was physically there, but because it had already happened, she couldn’t affect a change.