Damien (21 page)

Almost.

He covered her mouth, kissing her deeply and catching all the startled sounds she made as he moved in a full stroke within her. The honesty in the clutch of her hands and eager body was almost unbearable.

Almost.

Damien lost his sense of everything around him, save her and her wild little body squirming with very vocal pleasure beneath the magic he made within her. He slowly searched her for what would pleasure her the most, shifting a little higher on her when he realized it touched her just right that way.

In the beat of just three strokes, she went from unbelievable pleasure to utter ecstasy. What he was doing to her was nothing short of mysticism. Here, she thought numbly, was a true user of magic. Only he was not evil or an enemy. It was the magic of fairy stories and angels, good and sweet and clean.

And all the stronger for its purity.

Damien watched as her eyes closed and her face became a map of beautiful reaction to his every action. As his entire being locked off in cell after cell of blinding need, he knew he was about to have an experience unmeasured in his lifetime.

He loved her.

He loved her madly, and it made all the difference in the universe.

“Syreena,” he rasped hoarsely, suddenly needing to say her name. “Sweet Syreena.”

The deeper he moved into her, the more he felt like he was becoming a part of her. If someone could truly possess another person, she was doing so to him. Everything about her was blending into him, especially the unchecked squeaks and gasps of delight that came faster and faster from her. She was heading for an astonishing crescendo that he thought he could not even begin to understand. He would find out within moments that he was absolutely wrong in that assumption. They became like a single consciousness, feeling the mixture of their fervent bodies from all sides and all emotions.

Damien could no longer hold any part of himself in check. He made love to her with an untamed passion that bordered on brutality. She only encouraged him further, thrilling in the beautiful form of abuse they both needed with a zeal beyond reason and well beyond three-dimensional sanity.

Damien reached an unimaginable summit, the sudden theft of his sense and equilibrium leaving him without center or focus as he detonated into a powerful, pulsing climax. He was dimly aware of vocalizing ferociously, and of her matching exclamation as she imploded with ecstasy. She seemed to be a vortex, a Vampire in and of herself, drinking from him this time with her hungry, sucking body. He was her prey, and delightfully so. She could drain him dry for all he cared. Now and in the future. He had hardly known her when he knew he would lay down his life for her.

Damien finally fell against her with a disbelieving groan. Her power over him was complete. If he had not been lost before, he certainly was now. She panted hard and heavy beneath him, still floating somewhere between completion and consciousness. That familiar limpness wended up through her arms, and he felt her touch fall away as her overtaxed body swirled into a half-conscious state.

He recalled that he had no way of knowing what other ramifications there would be, so he took the opportunity to draw them both up from the floor. He smiled as she lolled against him with a sound of postcoital delight. He tucked her into his bed, sliding in after her immediately. He could not remember ever being this warm in all of his life, and he did not want to shed any of the heat too soon.

Damien turned her so her back was to him, and then drew her securely to his chest. He wrapped a tight, possessive arm across her waist. Not that he thought she would, but just in case, she would not be able to go anywhere without him knowing about it.

Damien woke with a start, surprised to realize he had fallen asleep.

The first thing he noticed was that Syreena was no longer in his arms.

She was sprawled across him, and, to his amusement, had somehow managed to turn completely upside down in the bed so her foot was nestled snugly in the vicinity of his neck. He raised his head slightly to look at her, getting a rather stimulating view of her bare bottom, and realizing his feet and ankles were sheeted in her brown and gray hair. Somewhere between her back and his thighs, they were twisted up into the bedspread, tied together like an odd pair of Siamese twins.

Feeling extremely happy just because she was there, he turned his head and kissed the bottom of her nearby foot.

She jerked in her sleep, sliding against him for a moment, and then settled down into deep, even breaths again.

“Oh, you must be kidding,” he whispered to the silent room, biting his lip hard to keep from laughing out loud.

He instantly reached for the same foot and drew a quick finger up the instep.

Damien had to dodge to keep from getting kicked in the head.

Syreena, heir to the Lycanthrope throne, was ticklish.

Unable to resist, he reached for her again.

“Touch my foot again and I will take your head off,” came the sudden mumbled threat through the muffling of bedclothes.

“Too good to be tickled, Princess?” he teased, ignoring her warning and attacking her foot in earnest.

Syreena yelped, trying to kick him again, rolling over in her sudden wakefulness.

“I’m warning you!” she shouted. Her threat came out as a squeal, however, stealing its intended punch.

To escape him, she slithered right off the bed and onto the floor. Damien dared to look over the edge of the bed in search of her.

“Come now, pouting does not become a Princess.”

“A black eye doesn’t become a Prince,” she countered tartly, tossing back her hair as she sat up. “You are not a very considerate bed partner,” she accused.

“I heard no complaints last night,” he mused, giving her the cocky combination of half a smile and a lifted eyebrow.

“Perhaps that is because you were snoring too loud to hear them.” She laughed when his expression immediately altered to a frown. “What? Too good to snore, Prince?”

“Why is it that when you say Prince like that, I feel like a German shepherd?”

“If the breed fits…”

She got to her feet and shook her hair back into place with a primp worthy of her royal status. Then she settled back onto the bed, sitting to face him and studying his amused expression.

“You know, I never actually considered it before…” She trailed off as if contemplating her thoughts. Damien was not fooled. He knew a setup when he saw one.

He indulged her, however.

“Considered what?”

“I never thought you might actually be
fun
. Here I was thinking sex was going to be my only entertainment.”

“I see. I guess you have to consider yourself fortunate then. I, however…”

Syreena smirked as he teased her with her own verbal trick. “However?” she prompted dutifully.

“I think I am the more fortunate one.”

The answer was surprisingly serious, taking her a little off guard.

“How do you see that?” she asked, looking away from him to smooth absent fingers over the sheet beneath her.

“Because no one has ever been in the position to tell me that I snore before, and I find I am quite delighted to hear it.”

Syreena looked immediately taken aback by the comment. “How is that possible?”

“Because I have never been in the habit of sleeping in the presence of others. Call it a Vampiric trust issue.”

Syreena felt the impact of the remark quite keenly. In an instant, it rewrote over a dozen suppositions she had made that were in error. “I never thought about that before.”

“I always have to think about it. I find I like my head securely attached to my shoulders. I would have lost it long ago if I were easily able to trust.”

“But Jasmine…?”

“Jasmine?” He chuckled. “Jasmine would rather run naked in daylight than sleep near the likes of me. She is much smarter than you are.”

“I am getting that impression.” She leaned forward, lying over his chest until they were practically bumping noses. “Can I ask you something without you getting bent out of shape?”

“You practically accused me of carnal intentions with another woman less than a minute ago. If that does not disturb me, I do not see what can.”

“Can I have it back?”

Damien blinked questioningly for a second, and then came that slow smile of comprehension. “I did not think you had noticed.”

She laughed at him and held out her hand.

He slid his hand beneath his pillow and then reached to give her what she wanted.

Gold and moonstones fell into a glittering pile in her upturned palm.

Jasmine was sitting in the main parlor with one leg slung over the arm of the sofa, the other braced on a coffee table, as she slowly leafed through a slightly mildewed volume that was wider than her lap and thicker than the width of both her hands laid end to end.

She leafed through the pages slowly, reading with interest.

“Is that from the Library?”

Jasmine looked up when Syreena addressed her, giving the Princess a long, disapproving appraisal. The Lycanthrope female was wearing one of Damien’s silk shirts, the extra fabric hanging to her knees. She was not very big, Jasmine thought. She could not see how Syreena could ever prevail in a fight, yet she was supposed to be some kind of an expert at Lycanthrope battle techniques.

Jasmine was unimpressed. Considering the fact that the Lycanthropes had been on the losing side the entire three hundred years of war with the Demons, it was not saying very much.

The female Vampire had been aware of Syreena’s presence in the house immediately upon her return from her most recent foray into the Nightwalker Library. Judging by the clothing she wore and the loud laughter coming from the vicinity of Damien’s bedroom earlier, she imagined that they had found a way to reconcile. This was also unimpressive. Jasmine was glad Damien was happy now, but the memory of his despair was too keen to be easily forgiven.

“Yes, it is. Your sister assigned a librarian a couple of days ago so we might begin to take selective volumes with us. It is easier to study in familiar surroundings, without so many strangers around.”

“She did? Whom did she choose?”

“A sexy little thing,” Jasmine said with a smile. “Dark and pretty, beauty mark on her neck.” Jasmine’s smile grew with taunting mischief as she purposely noted the area her kind was notorious for exploiting.

“Jinaeri,” Syreena said absently. “I see.”

“If you do not mind, I was just getting into this.”

Jasmine dismissed her without waiting for a polite response, turning a page in spite of the fact that she had not finished the previous one.

Syreena was not dense. She knew Jasmine did not like her. Normally, she wouldn’t care. Jasmine was important to Damien, however, so she figured she had to care. There would be time to improve the situation later, so she left the other woman to her reading.

She continued to move through the enormous house that Damien called home. The windows were all tinted so dark they were nearly black, except those in the library and the kitchen, which were stained glass. She understood the kitchen, because they had little to no use for it, so the colored light coming through was weak enough in case someone had to enter the room, yet able to add enough light to add appeal to the otherwise darkened hallways just off it.

Damien had warned her not to enter the library before she had even left the bedroom. Although the windows were stained, the balcony doors leading into the upper level of the room were not. They only used that room at night, which was why Jasmine was using the parlor to study.

The Princess touched absent fingers to her collar. Unlike her sister, she knew the secret to putting hers back on. She wasn’t supposed to know it until after she was wed, but she had picked it up covertly from an instructive manual they thought they had sufficiently hidden from her. She did not know how to take it off. Now, however, all she needed to do was ask Damien to do so.

She had thought she would feel enormous relief at the proof of the removal of the necklace, but she had not. Not because she was not reassured, because she supposed that she was. She had not felt relief because she had already given way to her convictions. She supposed Damien had known this, and that was why he had removed it from her as she slept. He had waited until it became an issue that had nothing to do with their decisions to choose one another.

Well, her choice was most definitely made. There was no turning back for her now. Though there were additional ceremonies to formalize such things, the minute Damien had breached her maidenhead, he had become wed to her soul.

As if the sexual act had anything to actually do with it, she mused with humor. His soul had captured hers long before that. That and his wisdom and perfect words. His gentleness of touch and his understanding. How she had ever resisted,
why
she had ever resisted, was now completely beyond her understanding.

She sighed, looking around the kitchen for something to eat, having little hope of actually finding anything considering it was the home of a Vampire.

He was exhausting.

Granted, she was working on a reduced blood supply after she had fed his hunger the night before, but he had also proven his stamina and appetite to be worthy of his legend. He had woken her repeatedly through the dark hours, making fine love to her body, always with the same intensity as the first time. Though he had experienced no pain the last time he had taken her blood, he had not taken it again. She had mistakenly thought that it was a major part of lovemaking with a Vampire, one that she could very easily get used to because of its powerful aphrodisiacal abilities and its blatant eroticism. His passion, however, reached the same extraordinary heights no matter what he did or did not do to her. She had never realized the body could be manipulated to pleasure in so many ways.

Lessons on sex and sexuality paled in comparison to the actuality of it.

Especially the part they neglected to mention about how sore it left one. It was a physically demanding workout, one that taxed even her athletic and well-trained body.

She realized that there was not even a refrigerator in the kitchen. Not so much as an icebox. She made a sound of consternation.

“Hungry, pet?”

She turned with a start. Now at full power, Damien could once again use the little tricks of stealth and strength that were seemingly an automatic part of his makeup. He had crept up behind her without raising so much as a hackle on the back of her neck.

“You need to teach me how you do that,” she said with envy as he moved to wrap a single muscular arm around the slight circumference of her waist. He drew her tightly to himself, swinging her slightly as he leaned in to kiss her collarbone where the gaping of his shirt in front left it exposed.

“It is a trick of the mind. I would be very interested to see if you could accomplish it one day. I would not put it past you.”

“Neither would I,” she agreed smugly, making him laugh at her.

His laughter vibrated over her skin, giving her a shiver as he moved his mouth in a line of slow, moist kisses up her throat and neck. She giggled when his whiskers coasted over her damp skin, and she squirmed out of immediate reach of his mouth.

“I warned you about that!” she scolded him, pushing at his chest when he would not allow her to wriggle free.

“So you are not ticklish there only if I am biting you?” he concluded in delight with a flash of mischief going off in his eyes.

“Some Vampire you are. Ooh. Watch out! The Prince of Vampires might tickle you to a horrible death!” She threw the back of her hand up to her mouth and went as wide-eyed as a serial heroine. “Somebody save me!”

“Did anyone ever tell you that you are a troublemaker?” he asked dryly, reaching to pull down the obnoxious hand blocking her lips from his.

He ended the entire repartee by kissing her into obedient silence. The kiss was just as stimulating to her now as it had been from the start. The only improvement was in her skill, she felt. She was learning the ways of his mouth and his kisses, just as she would learn the topography she used to fly from point A to point B when she was the falcon. Every crest and every valley was a marker, his clean, masculine taste and the dominant sweep of his tongue like road signs and landmarks to guide her.

Within the span of a minute, Damien had her body melting against his, as if she were made of a soft, pliable clay he could mold perfectly to the bend of his body. She became very aggressive with her kiss, in spite of the relaxation of the rest of her. Syreena knew best what would please him. A lick. A nip. Unmatchable appetite for him that always floored him in its intensity and abandon. He could bend her over backward, as he was almost doing now, with the ardor of his kiss, and she would gladly accept it. More than acceptance. Encouragement. She had a way of making attractive, compelling sounds of delight and invitation.

When he finally was able to make himself withdraw from her hot little mouth, he did not go very far. She was clinging to him like a second skin, a leg snaked around him, arms wound over his back and shoulders, and her entire torso clinging to his like a magnet.

“Syreena,” he said with soft relief as he pulled her sweet face into the curve of his neck.

Syreena knew every nonverbal sentiment that came with the action. She felt it just the same.

“I am very fortunate,” she whispered into his ear. “I know that now. From this moment on, I will always find my way back to you, Damien. I will know that your kiss, your touch, and your warm sensitivity will always be waiting patiently for me, just as I will always make my heart your home, so you always have a place to come back to.” She kissed his neck with a sweetness that rang like a poignant bell through his spirit. “If you ever did hurt me—and believe me, I know I am well deserving of it after what you went through—but if we had a misunderstanding, I would find you or wait for you or anything I had to do to make it better.”