Vampire Elite (30 page)

“What are you waiting for? Are you just going to sit there and let me die?”

She didn’t have to enter his consciousness to see that he was marshaling every ounce of strength left in him. He stood up and locked his eyes onto hers, a predator stalking its prey. Zlata had to fight the impulse to run away screaming. She swallowed her dread.

Odji dropped to his knees in front of her and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer to him.

“So you think I can’t resist you, that you’ve trapped me. What if I leave you like this, bleeding? You understand that you’ll die from the blood loss, right? I won’t allow humans to interfere until the last drop of your blood leaves your body, and then I’ll lie down next to you and die as well.”

She didn’t answer him, just stood there in silence, slowly bleeding to death, blood starting to pool around her feet. She could feel the lump in his throat. Goddess, how he longed for her to accept him! Why couldn’t he accept
her
as she was and sacrifice his stupid Sekhmi beliefs?

A surge of anger rolled through her. “Okay, fine. Let me die.”

At that, he stood up and cradled her in his arms, kissing her frantically at first, then more slowly and deliberately as his mouth moved to her neck. When his hot lips reached the open wound on her throat, he latched on and began swallowing ravenously, and she could feel his ecstasy as the burning liquid filled his body and restored his vitality.
 

She marveled that, having lost so much blood already, it could keep pouring out of her and into him without any ill effects. In fact, it only made her feel stronger. Or was it that she was feeling him getting stronger?

Finally, satisfied, he sealed her wound with his tongue and broke the contact. He brought his mouth to her ear and ran his fingers through her hair.

“I love you, Zlata. I love you so much, and I want us be together. There’s nothing in the world I desire more. But I can’t change who I am. Please accept me.”
 

Zlata felt the depth of his desperation. She saw him as a small child, dying in the snow with frozen limbs, crying for love he had never known. Then he was pressed against a large male chest, the warmth of the man’s body captured inside the fur coat that enveloped both of them. Odji’s heart was filled with devotion to this male, who had brought Odji’s freezing body back to life with his love. She knew that for the rest of his life, Odji would be indebted to this male; he’d die rather than walk away from his savior.

She understood him, but how could he ask her to do something he couldn’t do himself? She’d seen her people butchered on Sekhmet’s alter. What made him think she could just close her eyes and pretend it had never happened? How could she live the life Odji was offering her, enjoying luxury among the Vampire Elite, while her people were living in utter misery and despair just underneath their comfortable bedroom?
 

“I can’t.” She swallowed hard. “I love you Odji, and being with you would be a dream come true. It’s everything I desire—to fall asleep in your arms and be woken up by your kisses. But there’s a loyalty to my people that’s stronger than me. I can’t be happy while Amiti are suffering as bloodstock. Oh, I’m so lost ... ”
 

He buried his face in her hair and they stood there, locked in each other’s arms, as though time might stand still if only they didn’t move.

Chapter 42

The twice-weekly trip to Irkutsk, the closest city to the Project research station, to buy food and supplies took the better part of a day. Sometimes the Project staffers assigned to make the trip saw it as just another chore, but sometimes they looked forward to getting to the city—so Desiree considered herself lucky that she’d been able to trade her scheduled trip with another staffer and make it to the city today. She was both excited and frightened as she climbed into her truck and barreled off down the road. She’d been called by her blood-bond and was now going to him, perfectly aware that this relationship, if discovered, could cost her her life.
 

Her blood-bond and mate was Crian, the Alpha of the Hunter pride.
 

She forced herself to run two of the necessary errands—after all, she’d want to do them even less once she was with him—and then easily located the hotel, where they’d met for a previous rendezvous. She parked the truck behind the building, shifted into her Amiti form, and raced to Crian’s room.
 

She’d barely reached the room when the door flew open and she was swept inside. Crian picked her up, kicked the door closed behind him, and held her against the wall, covering her face with kisses as if he hadn’t seen her for centuries. She wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders and responded with hot, wet kisses across his eyes, cheeks, and mouth. Passion rising, his heavy male scent enveloping her, she ran her tongue around his ear and bit down.
 

“Take off your clothes,” Crian ordered.
 

She pulled off her fur coat, still kissing him furiously. Crian pulled her sweater off, but when he started to unfasten her bra, she pushed him away.
 

“You make me crazy! I told you I’m not feeding you anymore, not until you stop your filthy hunting business.”
 

“Oh, yes, my heart, I heard you—eight hundred years in a row. You’re not feeding me. And yet you still run to me when I call. Don’t lie to yourself, Desi. You want me; otherwise you wouldn’t have come here.” He pressed his body hard against hers and tore her bra off.

“You know this is dangerous for you. Oberon could find out. He’d kill you,” she protested, even as she surrendered to him.
 

“Trust me, if he hasn’t figured it out in eight hundred years, he never will.” Crian slipped his hands to her waist and slid her pants and panties down her legs till they dropped to the floor. She toed off her boots and kicked everything aside, laughing. Crian drew in a hissing breath as he cupped her plump breasts in his palms. Desiree was so aroused that the pleasure was almost painful.
 

“Crian ... ” Her legs felt like rubber when he unzipped his pants. She tilted her head, baring her throat to him, unable to resist him for another second. She’d never been able to; in the eight centuries they’d been lovers, she’d never tired of him, craving him with an intensity of a drug addict. “I hate you ... ”
 

“I love you too, baby,” he growled, grabbing her waist with one hand and lifting one of her legs with the other. He rubbed his hard, hot cock against her flesh, sliding it back and forth between her legs as he pressed his open mouth to her jugular. Her body spasmed with anticipation—but she also knew that Crian loved to draw out her torment, making her wait for him to satisfy her.
 

His hands glided across her body, down her stomach to the tender spot between her legs. Desiree jerked at the feeling of his fingers on her core, her body ready to explode. Chuckling softly, he ran his tongue along her neck and sucked the tender skin there, hard but without piercing it, bringing her to an impossible peak of arousal.

“Do it. Damn you! Do it! Crian ... ”
 

“Yes, baby?”
 

“I can’t ... Have mercy ... bite me. Damn you, bite me.”
 

He laughed and let her go, zipped his pants up and moved to the other side of the room. “I love it when an Amiti begs me to take her vein. It’s so sexy.”
 

Desiree gasped and lost her balance, sliding to the floor. “What the hell are you doing?” She’d meant to scream at him, but her lips could barely move, and her ragged breathing couldn’t push the sound far enough past them.
 

“I want to see that you want me as much as I want you.”
 

“Well, I do.” Still sitting on the floor, panting hard, she stared at him. “Now come over here and finish what you started. You know I hate it when you act like this.”
 

“You know, Desi, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t come to you just for the feeding. I really like having intellectual conversations with you.” Crossing his arms on his chest, Crian sat on the straight-backed wooden chair, propped his legs on the coffee table, and shot her a taunting grin.
 

“You son of a bitch!” Desiree shouted, rushing at him knocking him and the chair to the floor. Straddling him, she unzipped his pants.
 

“Wow, Desi, are you going to have your way with me?” Crian was laughing again. “I didn’t think Amiti were capable of that.”
 

“You haven’t got even the slightest idea what we’re capable of,” hissed Desiree, sliding down his body and taking him into her mouth.
 

She heard all the air leave Crian’s lungs, felt his body giving itself over, sinking into the pleasure she was giving him. Just as he reached the brink of climax, he deftly swung her up and around so that he was on top. With a sharp move of his hips, he parted her legs and forced himself inside of her, thrusting hard and fast, just the way she loved it.
 

More,
Desiree demanded through their blood-bond. Crian pulled out of her and lifted her up, holding her with one arm and using the other to sweep the dinner for two he’d ordered onto the floor so that he could lay her on the table. Lying back, Desiree gripped her elbows over her head and wrapped her legs around his hips, pushing forward so he could thrust back into her.
 

Eyes half closed, meeting his thrusts with her own, she connected to her own blood cells in his body, commanding them to intensify his pleasure, to make him feel loved and desired, to show him that he was
the one
. He roared like a wild animal and grabbed her legs, pulling them apart and holding them open wide, totally exposing her. As she watched him watching their bodies joining, watched the wild, unbridled lust in his eyes, heat surged in Desiree’s body and she cried out. His hands slid up to the juncture of her thighs, spreading her folds apart and circling his thumb on her clit. Every inch of her body was on fire and her cries converged into one long moan when he released her legs and pulled her up to him, enveloping her body in the blazing heat of his own, devouring her mouth.
 

Her body’s blood production was going into overdrive, preparing to feed him, and the oversupply made her feel feverish, engorged, as though every vein was swollen to twice its usual size. This was Desiree’s favorite part. Even though Amiti could learn to control their blood production, Desiree almost always let her body run wild and do what came naturally, disregarding that it wasn’t just thrilling but also dangerous.
 

And sure enough, right then her brain began to throb and blood pooled in her vision. It was too much. One more moment and he’d kill her; she’d drown in her own blood. She sent him a single word through their blood-bond—
mercy
—and waited, trusting him to save her. As her blood-bond, he sensed every nuance of her experience just as she sensed his. He knew that she loved to take it to the very edge: the higher her tension, the stronger her release. And she knew that he’d take care of her every need.
 

Laying her back on the table, he dropped to his knees and found the vein in her groin, his fangs piercing her skin—and she erupted, her body convulsing and drowning in the waves of exquisite pleasure shooting through her. As he drank she directed the waves back to him, letting him taste her ecstasy along with her blood.
 

* * *

Duchy of Aquitaine, France
Kingdom of Alba (now Scotland), 1174-1213
 

Late in the twelfth century, a young and ambitious Richard I led a campaign against his father, the reigning king of England, Henry II. Richard would go on to earn the legendary nickname Richard the Lionheart and then to take his father’s place as king. Crian, himself young and ambitious, joined Richard’s army as a knight—not because he supported Richard’s cause, but because he loved the adrenaline rush of battle. He’d left his mother, the most powerful sorceress in the Kingdom of Alba, and set out on his own to experiment with his wealth of powers.
 

Crian was among several dozen members in Richard’s army occupying a conquered castle in Aquitaine, in southwest France, when he met Desiree. His comrades had noticed food and small, valuable items going missing over the days they’d spent in the castle and were beginning to cast suspicious eyes on each other, eroding the trust they’d developed over months of fighting side by side. Crian set out to discover the thief, posting himself in a hidden location outside the pantry where most of the food was stored.
 

Nothing happened on the first night, but on the second, a cloaked figure slipped into the pantry. When the thief emerged carrying a sack of food, Crian was waiting in ambush. It wasn’t until his hands closed on a slender, curvy body that he realized he’d captured a female.
 

He pushed off the hood of her cloak to reveal a pale-skinned girl with a long mane of bright ginger hair curling around her face and neck in dozens of spirals. She held her head defiantly and her eyes blazed—but her body trembled with fear.
 

Crian thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life, and maybe never would again.

“What’s your name?” he asked her in French, hoping she understood him; most people in the area spoke a local dialect.

“Desiree,” she whispered.

“Desired.” Crian murmured to himself in English.
Yes, she is
, he thought. In less than a minute she’d become the only one he’d ever desired. He had to get her out of there: he might forgive her, but his fellow soldiers would see her as a thief and one of the enemy, and they’d show no mercy. “Will you come with me, Desiree? I promise to take care of you and protect you. You’ll be safe with me.”
 

To Crian’s astonishment and joy, she agreed.
 

Crian left Richard’s army that very night and took Desiree with him to his mother’s castle. As they traveled together, Desiree gradually revealed that she was Amiti; she’d been kept as bloodstock in the castle Crian had been occupying and was released by one of the castle’s more compassionate residents as they fled from Richard’s army. Crian reciprocated by letting her know that he was a Nightwalker, and within a day they were blood-bonded.