Damien, p.29
Damien, page 29
It made him feel a power that went beyond his gifts of Vampirism.
Syreena put a hand against him, firmly pushing him several inches away from her chest and mouth. He pulled back, blinking his deep blue eyes at her.
Then, as her other hand slid away over the bedsheets, he remembered why they had come there.
Syreena picked up the steel poniard, the metal glinting fiercely in the candlelight, the emerald embedded in its hilt winking its fire-green facets at them. She held it between their breastbones for a moment, looking down at the haft of the razor-sharp blade. There was an inscription in Vampyr on the hilt, wending in a spiral around the decorative swirl of crafted metal.
“I will break thee in any heart counter to my own,” she said softy, impressing him with her ability to read his native tongue.
“Family motto,” he explained with half a smile.
“Very emotionally passionate for a Vampiric saying,” she mused in a whisper.
Syreena touched the cold blade to his chest, lengthwise, scraping it with delicate concentration over his skin. Considering the hone of it, he was amazed it did not cut him. It was her skill alone that made it so, he realized.
“Tell me where,” she asked, her breath catching nervously in spite of how excited she was on other levels.
“Anywhere. It is your choice, Syreena.”
Her choice.
The basis of their entire relationship, in two syllables.
But she would not vacillate this time. She had already been through her debates and her decisions. Now, with their bodies conjoined so perfectly and his trust as naked between them as the blade, there was no need for choice.
She moved so quickly, it was more like a twitch. Damien did not even feel the bite of the blade as it nicked his throat. Her aim was remarkable for the speed she had used, the breach of his skin under an inch wide in the lower left space just off center of his Adam’s apple. Instantly, a scarlet bead of blood welled out of the wound, quickly filling and breaking, running down his chest, over his pectoral muscle and onto the ridges of his abdomen. The thin stream of his life’s essence continued on until it disappeared where their bodies connected.
Syreena flicked up her bicolored gaze to his as she dropped the poniard over the edge of the mattress and onto the floor. She did not even notice the clatter of the metal against the stone as she leaned toward his neck.
The minute her lips sealed over his skin, Damien felt the balance of the world spin away from them. He groaned savagely as she swept her tongue over him slowly, her deft little mouth burning him like a brand, and then began to suck softly against him. He gripped her tightly as she did this, his head falling back to increase her access. His fangs made a violent appearance as the groan turned to a rolling growl of pleasure.
Syreena felt the effect she was having on him from the center of her body outward. He swelled within her, heated intensely, the increasing hardness of him pulsing with wicked life inside her. His taste was not what she had expected. It was somehow different from the rust and salt tang that she had anticipated. His flavor was bold and nearly sweet. As the warm fluid slid over her palate and down her throat, she began to get a hint of what it had been like for him the very first time he had tasted of her.
There was power in his blood. All Nightwalker blood held the power of its owner, but this was like nothing she could have ever expected. There was so much of herself within him, and so much of a combination of Nightwalker power from within herself. The addition of his essence was numbing and erotic and pleasurable beyond words. She was not prepared for the fire that flowed from her belly and into all of her limbs. If it could, it would have exploded out of her fingertips, toes, and the ends of her hair, that was how violently it burst through her.
She pulled back from the place where she fed as her entire body locked in a delicious spasm of delight. Damien felt the convulsion as it passed through her, constricting her around him so tightly he thought he might lose his mind with the intensity of the recoil of pleasure that followed. He knew what she was experiencing, if it was anything like the experiences he had had. The very idea of it was as thrilling as the feel of it.
Damien slipped his hands down over her bottom, fitting her to his palms so he could lift her against himself, drawing himself slowly out of the incredible clutch she had on him. Syreena’s hands reached out to grab his shoulders suddenly, her strength remarkable as she did so. She cried out roughly as he relaxed his hands and allowed her to slide back down over him, fitting him like a spandex glove made solely to his dimensions. Her arms slid over his shoulders, wrapping around his neck and head as he repeated the motion again and again.
Syreena closed her eyes because she could not have focused on anything, and it was making her dizzy to watch the room spin and move. She was so lost to the tearing eroticism flowing through herself that she could do little more than let him manipulate her as he wished. Without the intercourse of their bodies, she would still have felt that way. With it, she was beyond feeling anyone coherent emotion or sensation.
Her shoulder nudged up against Damien’s lips, exposing it to the scrape of his teeth.
He could smell her.
Lavender, sex, sweetness, all blended into the pulse that flowed over her collarbone. He closed his eyes, rubbing his lips and his face over her skin, trying to remember that he had hunted that night already, only a short while ago, in fact.
Until she lowered her head back to the cut she had made on him and put her lips to him again.
He swore in Vampyr, a vicious growl of impatience and lustful intensity. He timed the thrust of his teeth into her shoulder with the thrust of his body. Her warmth flowed over his lips and tongue and the ever-hardening shaft surrounded so tightly by her all at once. Damien understood in that moment why this thing between them was meant to be the way that it was. This was the spice of true life. It flowed over him in liquid and emotional form and he knew that he could live twenty millennia and never grow tired of the sensation. It could have been the newfound acuteness to his feelings that made him wax so poetic in his thoughts, but he did not think that was so. This went beyond all of that. This was the blending of souls, the joining of spirits and blood and body.
It was everything.
She was everything.
“I love you,” she gasped beneath his ear, gripping him frantically as she spoke the words brewing behind his own lips. He sealed the punctures he had made in her body and pulled back to look into her eyes.
“I love you,” she repeated for him once she could see the blue of his eyes. She sobbed sharply, tears welling in her eyes as she cried with both emotion and pleasure. Her sobs and gasps mingled with one another as their movements together grew rapid and frantic.
Damien had never known the sting of tears, the rending of emotion that spiked and sparkled within the entire body right before they made an appearance. He turned his face into the blessed curve of her neck, dampness clinging to his lashes in answer to her honesty of feeling.
When she climaxed, it was as if she were thrown into a seizure. Her entire body seemed to jerk and spasm in time with the sobbing she could control no more than she could the orgasm itself.
Damien felt as if she were tearing him out of the sane world. He could barely hold her as her body writhed in his hands, wrenching at him in demand that he follow her into her bliss. For all his strength and power, he could never have denied her or himself the inevitable release she stole from him. No force on the planet could ever be that strong.
The Vampire Prince fell back onto the pillows and Syreena fell with him, sprawling weakly over his chest. She could not breathe, yet was breathing too hard. She could not silence herself as she continued to weep against the column of his neck. She felt his hands weave into her lax hair, holding her against him with that masculine gentleness of touch only his hands could ever convey. Damien did not try to console her in any way other than that fitting of his hands against her hot scalp. He was busy enough trying to settle back into his own body, trying to figure out how so much fullness of feeling could ever fit back within the limited confines of his skin.
She had told him she loved him. He had known that, but hearing it in the traditional phrase had affected him in new and blinding ways.
Ways that made him believe he could do anything.
Anything she needed or wanted him to do.
Because her loving him meant so much more than him loving her.
Syreena felt as though she were completely paralyzed.
She could not move, even quite some time after she had calmed down from her emotional and sexual roller coaster of feelings.
So she simply lay still, sprawled over her lover as if she had been doing so for years, not days. She could feel his fingers drifting up and down the length of her spine, the sensation soothing and sweet in the aftermath of such tumultuous feedback.
She thought she wanted to sleep, everything she had been through recently both mentally and physically exhausting. At the same time she was far too wired to ever succeed at rest, even though it was certainly past sunrise.
Syreena sighed, feeling safe as well as content. Sunlight had always been such a fearful thing for her people, the sun poisoning they could suffer a terrible thing to experience. Now, however, the sun meant such different things to her. It meant the likelihood of enemies disturbing them was reduced to nearly nothing. It meant that neither ofthem would go beyond the walls of their living space again until dusk. There was something about being locked in with Damien that made it seem like they were cocooned together. He could not leave her, and she could not leave him. Of course, they did not need such things to keep them together, but still it provided an added sense of togetherness and security.
“I can hear those abstract thoughts of yours even without trying,” he murmured close to her ear.
She smiled.
Syreena realized she had never smiled much in her lifetime. She had always been such a seriously centered person. She’d really only first discovered the ability to be lighthearted when she had become a part of Siena’s household fifteen years earlier. Her sister was known for her mischief and humor and had a way of getting to everyone’s funny bone. She had taught Syreena the pleasure to be found in joking and teasing.
But it was Damien who had sparked one irresistible grin after another this past week in a way that she had always thought to be beyond her, just out of reach of her understanding. She knew now it was because she was becoming comfortable with herself for truly the first time in her life. One needed self-comfort in order to find ease in humor and happiness.
“Are you always going to be this philosophical after we make love?”
Syreena giggled, raising her head to look at him and finding she was glad to actually be able to do so. She looked down into those eyes that seemed as deep as the deepest ocean.
“I hope it’s telepathy, this part of you I am supposedly getting. I would very much enjoy snooping around in your head in return.”
“Sweetling, I would love it if you did. It would save me a lot of foreplay.”
“Mmm, sure it would,” she said, her disbelief all too apparent. “I think you’d be very upset if we subtracted the neck nibbling from this whole affair.”
“Too true,” he agreed with a laugh. His grin lingered as he reached to rub a thumb over his latest brand on her. “I am sorry if I get carried away. I cannot seem to help myself.”
“Do not apologize, Damien. It always seems natural when it happens. It is an enhancement, not an intrusion.”
“I can believe that,” he said, reaching to touch the wound on his throat that was already beginning to heal. “I have never felt anything like this before. You make a very good Vampire.”
“Thank you.”
Syreena found she had regained strength in her arms, and using her healthy arm, she levered herself up into a sitting position over him. She paused midway, making a sound of discomfort as parts of her body protested fiercely at the movement.
“Hurting?” he asked.
“A little. I feel … I feel like …”
“You have been turned inside out?” he supplied.
“Yes. Of course, you would know that.”
“Yes, though I believe it was a bit more violent for me.”
“I beg to differ. I would definitely claim violence on this end.” Syreena groaned as she moved a little too far in a sore direction.
She felt his hands reach up to help support her efforts, but then he went distinctly still. She watched as his chin tilted down and he acted as though he were listening to something. Her heartbeat picked up momentarily, her sensation of security bleeding away suddenly as she tried to sense what had caught his attention.
“What is it?”
He looked at her as if surprised by the question. “Nothing. No, that is not true. It is nothing bad. Relax, sweetheart, we are safe here.”
“How do you know that?”
“Trust me. We are surrounded by Vampires, Syreena. They know I have returned. They would never let anything make it this far inside our county.”
“I thought Vampires did not congregate in the same areas.”
“Romania is the homeland. It is different here. The Vampires of this county have been affiliated with my bloodlines for generations. You may not think so, but even we honor certain loyalties. This is why Jasmine wanted me to come here. She knew it would protect us from all threats to surround myself with known allies.”
“So then, what were you listening for?”
“To. I was listening to a telepathic message. Forgive me, I did not mean to get distracted.”
“Never mind that.” She waved him off. “What kind of message? Must I ask you for everything? You are so stingy with information sometimes.”
“I suppose I am. I am not used to … well, never mind. It was just a greeting of sorts. A very old-fashioned one. It actually has no linguistic equivalent.” He paused to think about how to best explain it. “It is our version of a call-out. An ‘all’s well,’ so to speak. I have not heard it in so long, I almost forgot it existed. It heralds the dawn, marks the time when all should be accounted for and safe. If anyone answers, it means something is wrong. Out of habit and respect, you listen in case there is an answer.”
“That is very … well, it’s like a pack cry. It’s very Lycanthropic.”
“We are not so different as we sometimes think, our two peoples.”
“I am learning that. I—”
She broke off as the room spun out from under her suddenly. She made a sickly noise and instantly lay back down over him. His hand went into her hair, the other against her cheek with concern.
“What is it?”
“Just a little dizzy,” she said as lightly as she could, considering the turning of her stomach. “There you go, this is the part of you I am doomed to get. The off-balance part.”
“Do not joke when you are seriously not feeling well,” he scolded her gently. “I hope we have not been reckless, doing this Exchange with so little knowledge.”
“We have been,” she admitted, resting her cheek on his chest and trying to focus on the candle on the bedside table. Closing her eyes only seemed to make it worse. “But I knew that before we did it. I was prepared to accept the con—”
She broke off again, this time with a shudder that flowed over her entire body.
“Syreena?”
Damien sat up with her still clinging to him. There was a helplessness in her grasp that troubled him. He gingerly turned her in his hold so that he was cradling her in his lap. He braced her forehead to his chin, hoping it would help the dizziness that was clearly not getting any better.
“It will pass,” she murmured, though less with conviction so much as with hopefulness.
“You know, it occurs to me you have not eaten much since you have been dwelling with those of us who do not eat. That could be why.”
“Yes. You are right. Of course.”
She took a breath, and then passed out cold in his arms.
Damien was trapped.
The sun was up and he was in a barren household with no assistance, no supplies, and no way of obtaining any of the above. Syreena was still breathing, but in soft, shallow bursts that were more unnerving than they were reassuring. He had laid her out on the bed, succeeding in finding a reasonably clean sheet in a nearby cedar trunk in order to cover her. He could feel she was losing body heat, but could find no explanation for it other than the one he dreaded.
He had survived his part of the Exchange, but it had been a fairly close dance with the beyond, as he recalled. Though Jasmine had told him that there was proof of it being a regular success between breeds in the past, Syreena was nothing like an ordinary Nightwalker. What if her mutations had made this a deadly choice for her? Damien did not think he could bear to live if anything happened to her because of this.
“Okay, relax,” he said aloud to himself.
She was going through what could be termed a catastrophic change in her physical makeup, just as he had done. It would simply take a little time for her to recover. It had only taken him a day to overcome the same effect. Perhaps that was all he needed to do, remain patient for a gathering of hours.
The reassurance helped to keep him from panicking, but it did little to relax him.
Damien spent the remaining daylight hours keeping vigil over her, watching her very closely, to the point where he knew exactly how many breaths she would take in an hour. He recovered his pants from their discarded clothing and searched the household, but he had been right to assume nothing of any usefulness would be found there. Unsuccessful in that venture, he took to pacing the room.
About five hours into the ordeal, she began to breathe a little easier and seemed to slip more into a form of sleep than a state of unconsciousness.
This was what finally relaxed him a little, enough so that he could settle down beside her instead of circuiting the room helplessly. He gathered her up against him, cocooning her body with his in every way he could manage.
