“Lust? You’re feeling lust now?” She wiggled backward. “Oh. So you are.”
“You’re on top of me. Naked.” That was incitement enough, but strangely, he found that the idea of imminent death aroused him. The cuffs and the smooth steel at his back aroused him. The prospect of her bite aroused him.
“You’re disturbed. I’ve said it before.”
She didn’t even begin to know. The things you learned about yourself when you were dying.
He lifted his head to meet her kiss. He closed his eyes and savored the taste of her mouth, remembering the powerful ambrosia of her blood, and how it warmed his throat and blew open his mind. She took hold of his cock. He was so ready. He groaned aloud and thrust into her fist. “Hurry.”
She spat into her hand, rubbed her spit on the head and then guided him in. Her brow creased as she settled over him. She wasn’t ready. But she bit her lip and wiggled until she took him anyway. He couldn’t repress another groan as he sank into her heat. “Okay,” she whispered, “I’ve got it.”
Mikhail said, “Tell me when to come.”
He meant to remind her of her wicked blowjob. It might have worked, because she turned slick and took him deeper. With the first hints of pink breaking over the horizon, she began to ride him.
She ran her palms over his chest and pinched his nipples hard. He jerked under her. But then she stroked the pain away and gave him a sad smile.
“You’ll come when I bite you.”
He smiled to reassure her. But instead of reassuring her, it made her cry. She didn’t sob, but tears flowed down her cheeks. He wished he could wipe them away, but all he could do was watch her fight her embarrassment, lock down her emotions and transform herself into a predator.
And it was this predator, not Alya, who fell upon his throat.
Play biting was highly stimulating, and once started, it took an iron will to back off. Each vamp had a point of no return, and she was racing toward it. In no time, her nips became more aggressive, the licking more frantic, the kisses bruising. Her hips rocked faster and faster. She was losing control—and he loved being devoured by her.
This is an excellent way to die.
She growled low in her throat. The sensual, satisfied sound curled around his spine.
One of her hands slid behind his neck, lifting his jaw skyward, exposing his veins and arteries. Her scratchy tongue traced his neck. Her sucking kisses called up his blood. He went lightheaded, loose limbed and warm. No wonder feeders begged for it.
She jerked upright with a short cry, climaxing fast and hard. Just as fast, she swooped down and ripped open his throat. The pain jolted through him, spurring his release. As he ejaculated, she began to suck. He flowed into her. His spirit soared free.
“Misha.” There was no holding back from her, no secrets, no half-truths. Her consciousness flowed into him and saw all of him. At the same time, everything he ever was or hoped to be rushed to join her.
“If there’s a child, I’ll keep it.”
A child of theirs. He’d never even considered...
Her inner voice pushed into his reverie. “I’m sorry, so sorry.”
Outside he heard her swallowing convulsively. His heart lurched crazily, trying to compensate for blood loss. Fascinating. What had she been saying? She was sorry for something that happened a thousand years ago. It didn’t matter.
She was still drinking, but she was crying again. He smelled her tears. They made him thirsty. He wished he could have tasted her one last time. Dying under her mouth was like sinking into a velvet void. Summoning his strength, he opened his eyes to see blazing wisps of orange clouds reflected in the windows of the skyscrapers.
“Finish. Go.”
Alya tore a fresh hole and sucked viciously. The black closed in gently.
Chapter Nine
Mikhail flowed through her, icy and powerful as a river roaring out of the mountains. She’d known all along that it would come to this. That she would kill him. But now that the time had come, she hated it. He belonged in the world. He deserved to live.
But his blood leapt into her mouth, insistent. She didn’t even have to suck. His strength renewed her, giving back all he’d taken and so much more. His goodness staggered her. She rubbed up against it, hoping some of it would rub off.
Alya knew exactly how much blood she could take from anyone before she did harm. Mikhail had reached that point. He slipped into unconsciousness, but still his blood sang, yes, take me.
He was perfect and beautiful. His dying thoughts were of her. He loved her. As if she deserved it. As if she’d done anything decent in her life.
The compulsion to finish the kill was strong, almost too strong, but she tore her mouth away. With a few quick strokes of her tongue she halted his bleeding and paused, gasping, confused, her head and heart brimming.
I’ve got to save him.
She had no plan. No hope at all, really. More than likely she’d be dead within five minutes. But if there was even a sliver of a chance that she could get him out too, she had to try. And if she failed, well, with any luck he wouldn’t wake before the sun hit him.
Resolved, she sprang off the table and grabbed a six-foot length of chain.
Mikhail was with her. Not his consciousness, but his essence, unabsorbed and unsettled. Like a drop of dye spreading in pure water, it tinted everything she did. His caution tempered her recklessness. On her own, she would have rushed the building. Instead she crept through the door on assassin’s feet, descended a few stairs and entered a long hall, her senses prickling. There were guards at the end of the hall, she could hear them talking. A TV blared in the room to her right, and men shouted at it. She recognized the sound of sports. Using her finer senses she took a second sweep of the area and realized a single vamp was in a room to her left. Quiet. Maybe sleeping.
She slipped into that room, hoping to find Halverson, and walked straight into the butt of a rifle. The blow to her forehead bounced her off the nearest wall. Anna Halverson spun the rifle around for a killing shot.
Alya swung out with her chain and caught Anna’s leg by either chance or luck, because she couldn’t see straight. But she felt the chain grab hold and she yanked hard. Anna fell on her back and Alya was on her.
Unable to shake images of the sun igniting Mikhail’s flesh, Alya wasted no moves. She strangled Anna with the chain and claimed her gun. The room contained another treasure: an acetylene torch. With the chain around her neck, the gun across her back and the torch in her hand she crept back into the hall and began to set the place afire. As the smoke spread, the men came out to investigate. There were more than Mikhail had guessed. She picked them off one by one, first with the rifle, then with the chain, and then with her bare hands.
“Halverson!” she called, retreating to the stairs, hoping to lure him out to the roof.
Gunnar attacked out of nowhere, pushing her out the door. A cloud of black smoke rolled with them, obscuring the morning sky. He was brave, but he was just a boy. In a couple of moves she had his arm wrenched behind his back.
“You bitch!” he cried, his voice breaking with fear. “I’ll kill you for this.”
“Stupid child. I eat boys like you for breakfast. You’re going to tell your people what happened here. You’re going to tell them to live clean and stay quiet or I will come to the fucking North Woods and paint them red. And believe me, I will start with you.”
She pitched him to an adjacent rooftop some eighty feet below. Young vamps had some bounce to them. Usually.