Dark Destiny (Principatus) (29 page)

They were running out of time.

Whatever Pestilence was up to, he was about to do it.

She looked down at the Australian lifeguard.
Come on, Patrick.

He sat motionless, head bowed, shoulders slumped.

Fred suppressed the urge to fidget. She would help him deal with the enormity of his bloodline later, after the upcoming confrontation with Pestilence, when they had all the time in the world, but she needed him to be with her now. To be the sarcastic, determined, stubborn bastard she’d fallen in love with.

Finally admitting it, Fred?

She scrunched up her face and balled her fists. Yes, she was. She’d fallen in love with the guy, damn it, but just as Patrick needed to come to terms with who he was later, she would deal with her feelings for him after this whole shit fight was done. Until then, all that mattered was getting him ready. Really ready.

She fixed the back of his head with a hard stare.
Come on, Patrick. Please.

For an eternity, he didn’t move, and then Fred heard a ragged sigh.

“Fuck it,” Patrick said, pressing his hands to his knees and pushing himself from the chair. He looked at her with unreadable green eyes, a wry lopsided grin playing with his lips. “If I’m going to die, it may as well be saving mankind.”

Relief swept through her. She laughed before she could stop herself, closing the minute space between them with one step and smoothing her hands up his back. “So, does this mean we can recommence your training now?”

He rolled his eyes and slid his own hands down her back to grip her arse, tugging her hips harder to his. “What? You didn’t get enough the last time?”

She gave him a grin, touching the tip of her tongue to her top front teeth, letting him see her fangs. “We were interrupted last time.”

Patrick cocked his head to the side, his eyes shining with a light Fred could only describe as merriment. “Wait, we are talking about my ‘training’ aren’t we?”

She chuckled and pressed her sex to his groin. “I tell you what.
When
you finish kicking Pestilence’s butt from here to the lowest level of hell, I’ll let you tie me up and do whatever you like to my body. Is that a deal?”

The sudden spasm of his cock and his quick intake of breath told Fred it was very much a deal. He didn’t need to seal it with a kiss. But that didn’t stop her from stopping him when he captured her lips with his and did just that.

She slid her hands up his shoulders and tangled her fists in his hair, the cool strands like spun silk in her gasp. They didn’t have time for this. Not at all, but she sensed in Patrick the need to take this moment. He was the most amazing human she’d ever met, a human with more internal strength than all the entities she’d ever known. A being of immense power still untapped and unrealized. A being more at home on the water than in the Realm where he belonged.

A man faced with something no mere mortal should.

She would no more deny him this last moment of pleasure than she would deny him water to slake his thirst.

Parting her lips, she plunged her tongue into his mouth, tracing the edge of his lips, his teeth.

He groaned, gripping her arse harder, yanking her closer to his body. A fire roared through him. Fred could feel it heating her own blood and existence. She returned his groan with a soft whimper, the sound turning into a moan when he removed one hand from her butt to place it on her breast.

His fingers teased her nipple, pinching its puckered tip. She moaned again, ribbons of exquisite tension unfurling through her body. Her breasts grew heavy, swollen with pleasure. Her pussy grew wet and thick with anticipation. She deepened their kiss, arching her back to grant Patrick greater access to her breasts even as she ground the curve of her sex against the rigid length of his erection.

Oh, God, yes. This feels so good…so good…this woman…she is… Oh, God…I love…

The frenzied thought threaded through Fred’s own pleasure-clouded mind, feeding the inferno rapidly building in her core. She dragged her mouth from his, letting his lips burn over her neck, her jaw, up to her ear and back down. His tongue touched the curve of her shoulder and she realized she was naked. Wonderfully naked.

Patrick raised his head, staring down into her face with smoldering eyes, the hand on her ass squeezing tight, the one cupping her breast massaging with infinite care. “Jesus, you are gorgeous.”

She smiled, rolling her hips so her exposed mons stroked the impressive length of his boxer-short-covered erection. “I’m not sure you can say that anymore.”

His eyebrows rose, even as he captured her nipple again with his fingertips. “What? You
are
gorgeous.”

She chuckled, her sex flooding with liquid joy at his words, and carnal heat at his touch. “You know what I mean.”

A mischievous light flared in his eyes and he lowered his head to her neck. “The beauty of family,” he murmured, his voice caressing her flesh in soft little whispers of warm air, “is that you don’t have to change who you are.”

As if to prove his point, he pinched her nipple between his fingers and bit her neck with ungentle force.

Explosive pleasure rolled through her. She cried out, thrusting her hips forward. He chuckled into her neck, twisting her nipple, flicking it, pinching it until she cried out again, all the while charting a wicked path along the line of her shoulder with his teeth and lips.

Fred’s sex constricted, pulses of wet need gripping the memory of Patrick’s cock. By the Powers, she wanted him inside her. They were almost out of time, but she wanted him inside her. Thrusting. Pumping. Stretching her to the limit. Claiming her completely. Possessing her utterly.

She raked her hands down his back, letting her nails become claws as she did so, scoring lines into his flesh until she reached the waistline of his boxers.

His cock twitched, jabbing into her belly as she slipped her hands past the elastic band and gripped his arse.

Oh, yes…on fire…I’m on fire. This feels like…

She squeezed his ass cheeks, rolling her head to the side and leaning slightly away from him. He knew what she wanted. His lips traveled over her collarbone, his back bending as he moved his mouth, in tiny nibbles, down her chest to the fullness of her other breast.

Oh, Jesus…she tastes so good. I never want this to end.

She closed her eyes, Patrick’s thoughts heating her pleasure as much as his mouth and teeth and tongue and fingers. She agreed with him. She never wanted this to end. She never wanted to be apart from him. He was her future, her past, her eternity.

Unless Pestilence—

Patrick’s lips closed over her nipple, destroying the terrifying, unwanted thought.

She cried out. “Yes!”

He sucked on the puckered tip. Hard. Pain exploded in her breast. Blissful pain that flooded her sex with cream and stole her breath. She gasped, sinking her claws into his ass cheeks.

Patrick’s teeth sank into her nipple in reply and she bucked, her body shuddering as a sharp, abrupt orgasm rocked her.

She whimpered, feeling her juices wet her thighs.

“You taste so good,” he growled against her breast, the utterance sending gentle vibrations through its swollen weight.

Her still-throbbing sex constricted and she pressed her thighs together, the tiny nub of her clit a button of sheer, agonizing rapture.

He moved his mouth from her nipple, back up her neck, along her ear to her jaw. “I want to taste you everywhere.”

He didn’t give her time to respond. The hand on her breast moved down her body, over her ribcage, down the curve of her hip. Her pulse quickened and she shifted, breaking the contact between their hips just enough to slide her hand from Patrick’s ass to his cock. Its long, thick heat filled her grip, just as his fingers delved between her thighs and parted the folds of her pussy.

“Oh, yes.” Fred bucked, ramming her hips forward. He stroked the pad of his fingertip over her clit, once, twice. She shivered, waves of concentrated pleasure rippling through her. “Yes.”

“My sentiment exactly,” he said, the words leaving his lips in a ragged breath. His cock jerked in her fist, its steel length seeming to grow even as she held it.

Her pulse tripled and she pressed her sex to his hand, knowing her desire coated his fingers. Damn, she wanted him inside her. The teasing strokes on her clit were like torture, driving her closer and closer to another climax she could barely believe was possible, robbing her of breath and control and focus. She squeezed his cock, gazing into his eyes. “Please…”

With languid torment, his nostrils flaring, his stare locked on hers, he slipped one finger past her folds, sliding it deeper into her sex. “Is that what you want?”

She nodded, grinding her clit on his knuckle. A hoarse whimper
vibrated in her throat and she closed her eyes, feeling the building tension of her orgasm approaching.

Patrick withdrew his finger. All the way out.

Fred cried out in protest, snapping her eyes open to glare at him, squeezing his cock in punishment.

He chuckled. “Maybe you’d like more?”

Before she could nod, he slid his finger back into her sodden pussy, this time letting two others join its delicious journey.

Fred’s sex contracted. She thrust into his hand, liquid electricity stabbing into her core as she came again with a raw scream.

Again.

The violent climax claimed her. She trembled, Patrick’s hand between her legs the only thing keeping her on her feet. By the Powers, how did he do it?

Her legs grew wet with her cum, her breath shallow and quick with exertion. She was Death and as such, should never feel weakened or drained by physical activity. Yet making love to Patrick Watkins seemed to defy those metaphysical laws and she reveled in the mortal state.

Fred rode his fingers, her grip on his erection pumping up and down in perfect sync with her orgasm. He moaned, his body stiffened.

My love, my Death…oh, for the love of God, I’m going to…
And, as his balls rose up and his cock strained tight, she released her fingers around its length, dropped to her knees and took him in her mouth.

Tasting his desire for her.

Loving him with every molecule of her existence.

Ven looked at Amy through the tangled mess of his hair, blood and sweat trickling down his face, his eyes fierce and dead at once.

Behind him, knuckles red, grin insane, stood Raziel, his stare fixed on Ven’s back, his foot pressed to the bowed curve of Ven’s spine. He snapped his leg straight, slamming Ven to the floor, grin stretching wider.

“Ven!”

The scream tore at Amy’s throat. She tried to move, to crawl over to him, but she couldn’t. Pestilence had not been kind to her while he’d waited for Ven to arrive and her body barely functioned anymore.

A shudder convulsed through her—a reaction to the swarm of locusts Pestilence had poured into her mouth or the result of the sickness he’d filled her with, she didn’t know. If she were human, she’d be dead already. Now, she survived it all, in more pain than she believed possible to endure, too weak to escape, too demonic to die.

Tears and snot stung the gashes on her cheeks but she refused to cry. If Ven saw her cry he might give up and if he did that, they were both lost.

“This is all rather entertaining, is it not, my dear?”

Amy cringed, shying away from Pestilence as he hunkered down beside her. He smiled, yellow teeth dripping saliva. The foul stench of his breath—decay and rot—fanned her face and before she could stop herself, she threw up, blood and bile spewing from her mouth in a violent spurt.

“Leave her alone.”

Pestilence laughed, swinging his attention to Ven. “Why, the vampire finally speaks!” He reached out for Amy, stroking the back of her head as if she were a cat. No, change that. She’d seen him playing with a kitten earlier, a tiny little ball of white fluff. He’d touched the kitten with more care than he favored her now.

“After all this time trying to pull the words from your mouth and all I needed to do was smile at the female?”

Raz chuckled. “Not as much fun for me though.”

Pestilence nodded. “True. I have not seen one demon inflict such pain on another since the Fallen Star punished those who tried to change sides in the failed uprising.”

“Really?” Ven’s laugh sounded more like a choked cough. “I didn’t think my face was hurting Raziel’s knuckles that much?”

Raziel hissed. “Why you—” He stamped his heel into the small of Ven’s back.

The sound of snapping bones filled the air.

“Ven!”

Ven roared, and for a split second Amy swore she saw his face shift before he slumped to the floor.

Pestilence laughed again. “I like your spirit, Steven. It is commendable, given the situation.” He stood and walked over to where Ven lay motionless. “It is a pity, all things considered, that you and your brother were not on my side.”

“I…disagree.” Ven’s voice was almost inaudible, chocked by pain and muffled by the floor. He lifted his head and Amy’s heart stopped. Fresh blood trickled from his mouth and nose, staining his lips and chin. “Even if…” he coughed, and bright red blood bubbled from his mouth. “…even if I was a sad, pathetic fuck…like you, I don’t think…I could…handle the stink.” He pressed his palms to the floor and pushed, lifting his upper body partly from the cold black marble. “Seriously…” He spat out a wad of blood. “When
was
the last time you cleaned…your teeth?”