He pulled out, plunged back into me, his movements sharper, a touch more forceful. Less harmonious. More invading.
Blood. I became so aware of it beating within me. Coursing in me as he moved within me. No longer a soft pulsing flow, but one gaining speed and momentum, beginning to pound. Another dark thrill chased through me, tightened me. Blood. I suddenly desired it between us. And so did he.
“Drink,” I said. And tilted back my head, offering him my neck.
“Hell-cat.” Just those two words spoken in a rough, velvet rasp. His head lowered as he accepted what I offered, as he took what we both needed. His soft lips pressed over my beating pulse. The tips of his sharp fangs pressed against my skin, caressed it. I shivered. Groaned. My hands buried themselves in the thickness of his hair, held him to me there. One stroke, two—sharp fangs gliding over soft skin. And then he pierced me. And with that first taste of my blood, the dynamics of our lovemaking changed. As my red life flowed into him, what was soft and sweet became darker, more dangerous.
He growled, his body hardening as every muscle tensed. Then he unleashed himself, a sudden, hard pounding force, ramming himself into me, and I cried out in ecstasy.
“More,” I demanded, “more!” And he gave me more. He drove into me as he drank me down, as if the speed with which he pumped himself increased the speed with which my blood pumped into him. Maybe it did. All I know is that I wound tighter and tighter as he pistoned himself in and out of me with almost frenzied fury while he gulped me down, propelling me upward until I shattered into a million pieces of light. A million pieces of rapture.
I saw him above me, his skin dark gold like a gilded angel, as he called forth my inner light—the moon’s rays that dwelt in all her children. The night filled with the light that glowed from my skin, that burst from me as I burst apart, convulsing, shattering in climactic bliss. And above me, I felt not light but power swell from him. A burst of energy as he seized above me and pulsed within me, splashing his liquid heat into me, a small return for the fluid he had taken from me. He threw back his head and roared his release, his fangs crimson bright with my blood. And I felt the exchange equal. Was more than happy with it as he collapsed on top of me and let me bear his full weight, a pleasure all to itself, to feel a man sprawled on top of you like that with every muscle lax, all desire sated, every need fulfilled.
When my light faded back into me and darkness covered us once more, Halcyon turned his head and licked my wound closed so that it no longer bled. Easing out of me, he rolled to the side, pulling me with him to snuggle against him, his eyes warm upon my face. “Hell-cat,” he said softly.
“You didn’t use any of your mental powers.”
“I wanted our first real time together to be just you and me. No mental enhancement, no question of compulsion. Just me, my body, pleasing you.”
I ran my hands over that body, enjoying the feel of it—that smooth skin, those light muscles. The strong shoulders, powerful arms.
I realized that my fangs were gone. Just normal teeth once more.
“It certainly pleased me,” I purred, whispering a kiss against his lips now that it was safe. Now that there was no bloodlust. “You please me. Your mind, your body. Separate or together.” He kissed me back, pressed warm lips to mine.
A sound suddenly intruded, pulling him back from me, rolling him away. He moved so quickly, they both did, that I didn’t realize at first what was happening, just saw dark hair against light hair, and caught the quick flash of a blade. I heard Halcyon growl, heard the other man curse, and realized that it was my master of arms, Dontaine, my other lover, awake and enraged, his green eyes flashing with murderous intent.
I screamed, “Dontaine, no! Halcyon, stop! Both of you!”
They grappled together, grunting, growling, fighting. An entangled mass rolling on the ground, heeding me not.
“Stop it!” I screamed.
Dontaine was suddenly flung away. He sailed through the air for a dozen feet before hitting a tree with a hard thunk, branches snapping and breaking beneath his weight as he dropped to the ground. He jumped to his feet and rushed Halcyon again like a crazed bull, his shirt slashed, blood staining it.
I’d worried about Halcyon’s jealousy and his anger. I hadn’t thought of Dontaine’s. He went after the Demon Prince, armed with just a silver dagger and mindless rage.
Halcyon stood poised like a matador as the bigger warrior charged him. His slender body was tense, almost eager, his eyes hard and gleaming, with a cruel little smile on his face. His lethal nails were curved and ready at his side, Dontaine’s blood adorning the tips like red fingernail polish.
He held no malice toward me. That was what I had told Gryphon about Halcyon the first time I had met him. I hadn’t feared the Demon Prince, then. That was not true now. Malice emanated from Halcyon in thick, palpable waves as he watched and waited for Dontaine with that eager gleam in his eyes.
“That’s it, warrior,” he crooned. “Come to me.”
I didn’t let him. I tackled Dontaine, gasping as we hit the ground hard. Dontaine twisted, protecting me as we rolled. A nice sentiment, a natural instinct, but not what I wanted. What I wanted right now was obedience from him. I ended on top of Dontaine.
“Mona Lisa, are you all right?” He sounded concerned. He sounded sane, intelligent, reasonable. Not at all like a suicidal idiot.
I snarled and grabbed him by the shirtfront. “I command you as your Queen to stop! Right now. No fighting!”
He yielded, in his eyes, in his body beneath mine. But not in words. I slowly peeled myself off of him and rose to my feet. “Say it, Dontaine.” My voice was hard, flat, and brittle. As brittle as how I felt.
“No fighting,” he said and rose to his feet. His body trembled as he looked over my head, behind me. Not in fear, but in anger. In rage.
Carefully, I stepped back to the side, positioning myself so I could see them both. And understood immediately what had set Dontaine’s anger ablaze once more. Halcyon’s nakedness. That golden skin was uncut and dry…all but his shaft that glistened with wetness, coated by my juice where he had sheathed himself inside of me.
“Halcyon, could you dress, please?” I asked. Walking back to where my own clothes law strewn on the ground, I pulled them on quickly. Dontaine stood where I’d left him, like a dog straining against an invisible leash, held back only because of that restraint. No less savage because of it.
I went back to him. Touched him soothingly. “You knew Halcyon was my lover. I told you that, and you took the news calmly. Why did you attack him now?”
“Because he infected you! You must stay away from him lest he infect you even more.”
Fear spiked through me as Dontaine’s words betrayed to Halcyon the very thing I had tried to keep hidden from him. God, how tired I was of being afraid.
One of my new abilities was a falcon’s clarity of vision, Gryphon’s gift to me. To see clear down to one’s soul. I turned Dontaine’s face down to me, looked into his eyes, and saw the real truth in him. “Dontaine. It is not just fear for me that made you try to kill the High Prince.”
Fine tremors shook Dontaine. Heated his eyes with a tangle of emotions. “True. I want to kill the Demon Prince because you turned from me as a lover, yet you continue to accept him.”
“He is safe,” I whispered, a part of me crying at the pain I saw in those eyes. “He cannot be affected by what is in me. I do not fear for him as I do for you.”