This was the nicest hotel room she’d ever been in, and she was going to die here.
“Be calm, sweet Leila. You are in no danger.” Calmly, as if he thought she’d believe him. He didn’t even twitch every so often to adjust his balance, like a human would. No, he just crouched like a gargoyle statue—or a cat contemplating the next helpless, unwitting bird it was about to snack on. “Now, have you ever heard of leman?”
Wait, what? Is that Spanish? Limonada, or… wait, lemon?What the fuck did furniture polish have to do with all this? Or… did he mean lemonade? Was she supposed to mix beverages; did he want a fucking bartender?
Bet he drinks Bloody Marys.The dark, screaming hilarity was a bad sign, and the shaking intensified. Soon she was going to fly apart, in a million pieces all over industrial mauve nylon carpet. What would he do if she tried to escape now? Catch her again, maybe.
But perhaps, just possibly, she could make it.
Stock-still, patient, the vampire waited for her answer. No doubt he was just playing with his food. Either way, the urge to bolt crested, and Layla gave in, rocketing to her feet. If she could just reach the door?—
Unfortunately, he was faster.
The world flipped onto its side—no, she was thrown flat on her back across the already-muddled bed, and her arms flailed uselessly. There was a harsh rip of fabric, cold air hitting now-bare legs, and her despairing scream was trapped as the vampire’s mouth closed over hers.
His tongue probed insistently, a strange, sweet taste spreading numbness against her teeth; her knees were shoved far apart as his hips settled against her inner thighs. No leverage, her attempt to scoot away doomed to failure; the bed gave a small forlorn creak as a hot, insistent iron bar probed at her most sensitive juncture. Her T-shirt rasped against tangled sheets below and his sweater above; the contrast between its thin comfort and her utterly bare lower half—save for sock feet, her heels scraping against wadded comforter and more thrash-tangled sheets—adding to the confusion.
Another instinctive attempt to wriggle free, the world painted dark red with panic, a stretching andinvasion. He surged into her, a single thrust sinking deep, and Layla realized what was happening just as another odd, stroking pressure settled a little higher, massaging where nobody else had ever touched her before—her two high school quasi-boyfriends had been strictly limited to above-the-belt petting, and afterwardshe’d avoided all intimate contact, vaguely repulsed by the thought of further sweaty, greedy male bumbling.
Fire arced up Layla’s spine; her back arched, another long trailing cry boiled in her throat, and the creature above her sank a fraction deeper. He braced on his elbows, muscle-corded forearms across her biceps, effectively pinning her flat. A strange rumbling growl spread from his chest, vibrating in her own bones. He thrust again, and again, Layla’s body shuddering helplessly under the onslaught. One of his thumbs brushed her cheek, almost a caress; his fingers on the others side threaded into her hair.
Familiar pressure rose—as if she were rocking on her own fingers late at night, safe in a familiar bed instead of pinned under a heavy inescapable weight. Her body didn’t care. It had been tormented by endless fear, exhaustion, the interminable awful strain of staying alert to variable male moods, suppressing the cold white glare of grief, and so much else. Slick hot impossible pleasure spilled through her, a luxuriating relief from all uncertainty, all the dread and second-guessing of her own thoughts.
Tossed over the tipping point, nerves sparking, muscles locking in waves as excruciating pleasure tore through every inch, her body took what was offered. Slack and unresisting, her mouth was full of a candied-metal taste; a single thread dribbled past the fire in her throat. Again and again the pulses tore through her, all coherent thought lost, only an endlessnow.
For her very first time, it wasn’t bad.
CHAPTER 8
No dimly rememberedmortal fumblings could approach this glory. The thrall struck hard, snapping every vestige of fading control, and even the few feverish, animalistic couplings with female fledglings when his duties allowed or reward was granted were nothing by comparison.
He had been drowning in shadowy violent mortal life, then in the slowly accreting dust of sanguinant age. His head broke surface for the first time in his long existence; pure air stung his lungs, and the source of that glorious liberation shuddered under him. The soft sweetness of her mouth was a city to be plundered at leisure, the slick wet velvet of her core closing around him strangling-tight as her release struck—at least he could please her, though he knew very well fear was so close to survival she was not strictly responding to his attentions.
At the moment, it didn’t matter.First the bite, then the claiming; that was the proverb, repeated in every language the sanguinant knew. It was true, every word he had ever heard failed to representhowtrue, and his only regret was that he could not take his own final pleasure at the moment.
There was too much else to accomplish. It was only an hour past dusk; he might be able to spirit her from this city with no living creature the wiser. Esmond the Varangian—Nemesis’s original target—would be wary after the battle outside his primary feeding-haunt, and though their master would no doubt retreat to the mansion used for certain business concerns, his underlings would be spreading through the city to look for traces of the attackers. It would take some time before Father could assume Nemesis had for the first time not carried out a given duty; if Maximus were swift and lucky he might be accounted dead of either misjudgment or ossification, rendering him free to build a hidden nest for his prize elsewhere while other plans could be laid.
A wonderful possibility, but only that. She was not yet wholly safe, and until that moment he could not allow a single mistake.
His true teeth fought for release, scraping his own flesh. Another’s fangs could not easily pierce that wall; still, a thin thread of his own blood was loosed, and passed to her upon a kiss he hoped might at least grant some additional moiety of pleasure, if not ease her fear.
Delicious little cries, his to catch and feast upon. A nymph struck with Venus’s greatest gift shook beneath him, tiny jewels of perspiration dewing her forehead, her hair a fragrant dark cloud. In his youth they averred all roads led to the city of emperors, but that was a lie; any highway, byway, or path began and ended here, at his leman.
The arch of existence now had a capstone. She finally lay quiescent, his cheek pressed to hers, her perfect shell-like ear next to his lips. He hungered to move again, to bring her to another gasp-screaming summit, but she was still mortal. A sanguinant’s attentions might well prove overwhelming; had not Iuppiter learned caution with one of his dalliances, a princess blasted by unveiled glory?
The comparison might be arrogant, as the soldier stood far more chance of being laid waste by the lovely divine creature in his arms—but it was also apt.
She lay very still, the flickering pulse in her slim throat calling to him, her breathing deep and ragged. The bond was solidified now; he had claimed the treasure.
He possessed a leman. She washis, an eternal addiction capable of staving off ossification and creeping-numb death. Now he was aware of precisely what he’d done, and what the act might mean to her. Still buried deep, still tempted to take his own release and any consequences that might bring, he bared his blunt mortal-seeming teeth and sought control.
Her whisper surprised him, lovely still-mortal lips barely moving. “Are you going to kill me now?”
Is that what you fear?The thought very nearly caused him to recoil, stiffening in shock. “Of course not.”
Her throat moved afresh as she swallowed. Her pretty lips were chapped, and even with the first application of change agents swimming through her veins, soothing and providing enhanced repair of tissues, the bruises on her arms still glared. Some were clearly finger-marks, and he wondered what the mortal men in that ramshackle building had done to such entrancing, fragrant fragility.
Had he simply done the same? Self-loathing was not new to one of his kind, but this held a jagged razor edge. In its wake followed a flood of bleak shame.
