Zauran (13 page)

My heart rate slows down and the shadows feel warm and inviting. I never want him to stop biting – it strangles the world and offers me up as a sacrifice to endless delight.

Every stroke, touch, kiss, are poultices eradicating mental and physical pain, all my discomfort is fading like a rainbow before heat.

I am asphyxiating in every way, but one.

We don't bite necks, Zena. Consider it my first gift to you. The first of many.

Fingers slide up the well of muscle coated in our purged depravation, scissoring and sinking higher.

I've given you more gifts, can you guess what they are?

The thumb pressing my lust button detonates, igniting my blood with the gunpowder of his skin and the volatile flame of his touch.

Paradise
, I answer, spiraling back into the hellfire of his eyes and commanding potency.

Chapter 12

Zaria:

Drowsy and cuddled with piles of soft bedding, I inhale again. My heart rate picks up with the strong aroma of Zauran and his unique scent.

Recollection squeezes my veins, chopping my breath and compelling me to open my eyes.

Staring at locked curtains overlapped against the sun, skimming my gaze over the deep pile of the onyx carpet, I lean back, expecting to connect with the man who crept into my chest to stamp his lips on each chamber of my heart.

Rolling, looking around, it's disappointing to discover I'm alone.

What time is it?

It feels early. Sitting up, pushing my hair off my face where it threads like a dreamcatcher, my skin crawls with the brisk cool air. Just being here surrounded with his environment and thrilling presence makes my nipples tense and readiness slip heat into my loins.

I want to find him, hug him, kiss him and hold him tight, to thank him for reminding me why life is such an exciting adventure.

Sliding out of bed, I can't locate my clothes. They're pretty much scattered throughout his home if I recall. I could go downstairs naked, but after the traffic I witnessed last night I'm not willing to risk that kind of exposure.

Twisting my hair into a wreathe, I knot it to get it out of my way. It's the plus of having such long hair, I don't need a band to tie it up.

Indecision grips me as I ponder my predicament. Surely he won’t mind if I hijack one of his shirts?

Wiping my face with vigorous friction, sending awareness into my eyes and cheeks – chasing away sleep, I walk to the closet and open it to extract a long sleeved tee, or a jumper,
something
.

Masculinity hits me. It’s immediately invigorating.

Dragging my gaze over edge to edge black and deep foreboding gray, the neatness and darkness grips me as if in hypnotism.

I’m stunned still, inhaling leather, denim…
him
. I'm instantly giddy with the assault.

Stepping carefully closer, I tentatively touch the first of many black leather jackets, lifting the sleeve and inhaling rain and raw wild recklessness.

The cologne he wears lingers on the leather and the cocktail is indelibly potent. It's the omniscience of strong, powerful, sexy, supernatural; indomitable protection and knowledge.

The man who smells like this is immovable, threatening, gentle and tender. Just his scent is an omen, a warning, a lusty and heady drug. Closing my eyes, my heart rate spiking uncontrollably now, it makes me yearn for him something fierce.

I’m surrounded with him. It’s like standing on an island; a little slippery rock in the center of the sea; with his wild ocean swirling and roiling its spellbinding motion and spray at me.

It parches my mouth and scores passion clear through my body. Shaking, my legs unsteady now, I touch the next item, and the next, staining my pores with Zauran’s smell, wrapping his incense into my skin and dousing myself with the natural aftershave of his neuri power.

Sinking, my knees fold, and I end up sitting on my legs, my strength dissipated with my insides wobbling in jellylike anticipation.

I have it so bad for this boy. Just his smell strips me to my soul. I’m craving him.

The clothes hanging like parishioners in front of me, remind me of his deep dark mysterious eyes that reflect facets of light like a sunstone. They drape his wide shoulders in an extension of his persona. Most of his denim jeans are faded from their original deadly black to shades of dove and graphite. The biker t-shirts are all so thundercloud and black they are like oil fountaining over cracked desert, staining his white closet with ink.

He’s that volatile and fueling. He’s that dangerous and that needed.

He is this dark and durable – and heartwarming. Comforting, familiar, reassuring and steadfast. Leather and denim weather well, they have wide shoulders to carry the weight of their lifespan, like the man they adorn.

It’s easy to see he prefers his motorbike to the car by looking
in here. I feel like I’m violating his secrets and plundering his privacy.

Decision spurs me and I hastily pull it on, standing and leaning heavily on the doors when I close them again, absently pressing a harsh pressure into my groin to dull the throbbing ache now lodged there.

He's enormous, his t-shirt reaches below my knees and to my forearms with ease. Needing a kiss, and coffee, I take the stairs to the kitchen, surprised when it's empty except for the coffee pot steaming exotic temptation into the room.

Maybe he's in the lounge, or den? Or bathroom?

Heading that way, I'm eager, my skin sending frisky tentacles to coil into my depths, readying me for whatever this morning brings. Him!

Turning the corner into the lounge I almost collide with the man walking out of it.

Stalled in shock, my heart hammering, I trace my gaze at eye level up over gray clad abs, over the crest of his chest, up to a thick tanned neck with veins lining it like bondage cords, up to a smooth chin depressed with a dark dimple, finally shutting off my breath with the tilted angle of my neck to stare into azure eyes.

Looking down at me dark blond hair falls forward, all of it stopping dead with his jaw, forcing him to thread fingers through it to hold it out of his eyes.

“
Hello there,” purrs at me like a deep bass buzz of a rock concert.

It's friendly, cheerful, welcoming.

I have no clue who you are but I'm glad to see you don't all come stock standard as intense.

“
Hel-lo,” I choke, coughing when my voice strangles and a burr sticks in my throat from the effort. Dropping my head with a shaft of dizziness, I inhale, swallow, and try again. Taking a step back so I don't have to cramp my spine to look at him, I nod, “Hello.”

“
I'm Aisyx. Who are you?”

A big hand is thrust at me which I'm obviously supposed to shake.

“
Zaria,” I say, placing my hand in his and watching it vanish when fingers close around it.

Holee toledo. Is it just me or do men only come in super-sized these days?

“
Zaria,” he repeats, smiling wide and locking my hand in his grasp, not letting go.

Back off buddy, I have a black belt in feng shui.

As if hearing me he releases my hand and steps back, giving me room. A naughty smile tugs the left side of his mouth and he looks beyond me as if trying to hide the laughter sparkling his eyes.

“
Where's Zauran?” I ask, looking past him.

“
He had an emergency. He asked me to watch out for his girl until he gets back.”

Oh?

Aiming my focus back at him, I desperately want my clothes. I feel naked and vulnerable.

“
Why you?”
Why do I need someone to watch my back?

How can he leave me with a complete stranger.

Surveying the gargantuan man swiping his hair back again and sitting down to bring himself to almost my height standing, he smiles.

His eyes are blue. His hair is blond. He's not neuri.

What are you?

Folding my arms to hide my pert nipples, I wonder where to start looking for my underwear and jeans.

He seems uncomfortable and stands again, towering over me and blotting out everything beyond his shoulders from my view.

“
I'm the best man for the task,” he nods, flopping straight hair forward and giving me a quick wink. It's a reassuring gesture rather than a creep getting his rocks off gesture. “Zaria, I'm half neuri and half vampyre. The only one on earth.”

He indicates his body with both hands in a sweeping downward movement, “I'm this big because of it.”

Must suck to be you.

Instead, I smile at him, pulling my congeniality kicking and screaming out of the basement of my defenses. “Wow. So who do you date?”

“
Vampyre. There are no female neuri, females are not born, ever. And as the last decent female vampyre has fallen into evil's clutches I'm destined to be single and horny with my left hand for company - for eternity.”

He seems pissed off with the idea and angles piercing eyes through me as if resenting me.

“
I'm sorry.” I don't know what else to say.

He gives me a generic smile, lengthening his fangs and giving me a truly wicked look, “Yes, it sucks to be me. You'd know of course, having jumped from the frying pan into the fire.”

“
What do you mean?”

I hug my arms tighter, intimidated now.

“
You left a vampyre who could melt the flesh off your bones with his bite, for a neuri. Neuri mate for life, Zaria. Life in our terms is forever. Immortal.”

Immortal
is said in such a way that it feels like a bullet. It's the moment you realize you've been shot and there's no going back to the way you were. The decision's been made and I know I've willingly stepped into the firing line. I didn't face the firing squad even though this crowd are beginning to feel like an army to my mind. It's a niggling sense of knowing.

No, all I did was set myself up royally to take a bullet, now only time will tell if it kills me, scars me, or passes clean through with the impact of a miracle.

Tilting my head so I can stare back at him without getting dizzy, I say, “And you? Do you mate like a vampyre or a neuri?”

“
It doesn't matter, does it? I'm so large only vampyre can handle me – and there are none left.”

“
That's where you'd be wrong,” exhales smugly from the doorway behind us, stripping my calm and eliciting a squeal.

Hingeing to face the doorway, I step instinctively back, halted by the hulk behind me.

Sveta rakes his gaze over me, slouching heavily against the arch of the threshold, finally meeting my eyes to whisper in a threatening tone, “You smell incredible this morning.”

His volcanic-black eyes gild with amber and I'm unnerved by the twitch of his jaw muscle.

“
She's hot for Zauran, not you,” rumbles from behind me.

I'm suddenly grateful for the back-up Zauran supplied me with.

Sveta's eyes slowly return to impenetrable black and he engages his stare with the man at my back, “So you can smell it too?”

Then he closes his eyes and inhales so deeply his neck tenses, forcing his Adam's apple into relief and pumping the veins out as if he's straining with a heavy weight.

Exhaling with exaggeration Sveta reopens his eyes and locks them on me, “Zaria, I think you're finally going to come in handy.”

“
What's that supposed to mean?” Clutching my hands tighter over my arms, I'm tense. God I wish I was wearing jeans.

“
Your friend, Jowendrhan, turned a female last night. She's home, alone, and her heart beats as slow as theirs. One beat every five minutes means she's joined the ranks of vampyre. He's repopulating the world with silver eyed spawn, starting with a mate he had no right to claim.”

“
No right?” I say.
He has every right.

Sveta cocks his head, cascading his untidy hair the shade of burnt whiskey to catch the tendrils of sunlight filtering into the lounge. He looks like he just burst into flame.

Most of the time his hair looks chestnut with resin highlights, but in golden sunshine it strokes those highlights into an inferno of copper and gold.

This man exudes danger with a generous dose of sleaze.

“
Zaria, there are three of you. They are three brothers, we are three brothers. Serbian women belong to Serbian men. He doesn't belong on my land, and now he's taken the one I chose for myself.”