I should have lain in the cradle for several more centuries. Why was I called here? I held out a clawed hand in front of me and tried to focus on it. But the image of my own form vibrated as I attempted to stabilize.
The sekhor’s hand pressed against my monstrous one. Her small fingers slid in between my claws, holding on.
“Hey baby, I got you,” she cooed, sending me another look full of feeling.
My body melted under her touch. Dark, black fur receded, leaving me in the flesh of a man once more. Our hands remained entwined.
The sekhor stepped forward, running a hand up my cheek.
I should end her. One of my jobs was to eliminate the sekhors, protect the souls of humankind from being petrified in such an immovable form. I needed to keep them from trespassing against my brethren.
But warmth filled my chest at her touch.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” A tear slid over her lashes and down her face.
My hand covered the one she’d pressed against my face in a movement that felt so familiar, yet still entirely foreign.
Before I knew what I was doing, I wrapped my hands around her hips, pulling her against me. Her body, soft and yielding, against my hardness. My heart strained against my rib cage as if reaching out for this creature, though I did not know her.
Then she leaned up and pressed her mouth against mine. My eyes drifted shut when she opened to me. My tongue dipped in, tasting her. Leather and sugar wrapped around me in a drugging haze.
Suddenly, I wanted to know if she tasted like that everywhere. I traced down the column of her neck, licking and sucking, before nibbling on her collarbone. She groaned and pressed her body against mine.
Voice thick with emotion, she said, “I missed you.”
My head rose as I regarded her. Need pulsated through me, though I didn’t understand. Some unknown sentiment tangled with the knowledge of my duties.
Lust? No. Something more powerful permeated my being, gripping me tight. I wondered if I could blame her prismatic soul for bewitching me?
She searched my face before it crumpled in pain. “You really don’t remember me, do you?” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a golden skull ring with ruby red eyes.
Instead of answering or taking the ring, I resumed my exploration of her collarbone. There was something so painfully familiar about the taste of her. Pushing aside the strap of her top, I continued down the swell of her breast. The ring fell from her fingers.
Despite knowing I had to eliminate the sekhor, arousal pounded through me. I wanted inside her. To feel connected to this being, as if it would somehow ground me.
Her hands took hold of my face, bringing me back up to hers. “I know this won’t make sense to you right now, but I never had one foot out the door. Even if I couldn’t say it then, it was always you.”
This time, what felt like a surge of lightning ripped through me. I arched back, gritting my teeth. Still too unstable. Still too new.
Acting off instinct, I grabbed the sekhor, pulling her onto my hips. The radiant woman wrestled with her top, ripping it over her head and throwing it off to the side, revealing perfect breasts. I lost my ability to breathe for a moment, everything in me stilling. This felt so right, though I couldn’t say why. Then I laved my tongue against her exposed, most sensitive tips, needing to taste more. We did away with her pants and undergarment in a flurry of movement.
Her weight was nothing as I finally lowered her onto my straining hardness. We moaned in unison. Her exquisite, tight heat surrounded me—like coming home.
Nails bit into my shoulders as she threw her head back. “Grim, oh god.”
Grim. That was my name.
The realization was fleeting, suddenly unimportant, as I lay her down on the edge of the pool. One leg balanced on the ground as I drove into her. Need, and that unnamable emotion, both ancient and powerful, gripped me. The atoms in her body turned unstable as I trapped her so close to the cradle. I used my own magic to draw down a protective cloak to shield her from it.
Fangs sank into the space between my shoulder and neck. She drank deeply of my blood. Time felt like an amorphous entity, moving around me, everything happening at once, even as my hips continued to buck. Her skin warmed underneath mine until an inferno blazed where we were joined.
The connection was almost instantaneous, as the blood bond formed. Panic flared in me, then anger.
The treacherous vampire used her wiles on me to get to my blood. The harpy desired a blood bond, or perhaps to drain me until she took enough power to defeat the gods. Either was unacceptable.
And she’d made a fatal mistake. I now controlled her will.
I grabbed her by her hair and jerked her head back until it tilted up and away from my throat. She arched her back to ease the pressure, forcing me deeper inside her. I pinned her against the stone with my weight. A bright red smudge of my blood marked the corner of her lips.
