Heart and Soul (19 page)

A soft sob escaped her. A single name.

“Elias . . .”

She whispered out, “Elias.” And then her lashes closed and she was silent. The beeping monitors still attached to her showed a slow, steady heartbeat; her chest rose in slow, shallow breaths.

Other than that, she looked more dead than alive.

But under the fragile shield of her lashes, her eyes moved rapidly, tracking back and forth as she struggled in her dreams.

Or memories . . . one tear slid out from under her closed lids, trickling down her cheek and into her hair.

CHAPTER ONE

She rarely remembered her dreams. And even as his hands curved over her sides and stroked down her torso, she knew this was a dream. Knew she wouldn’t remember. In her heart, she briefly wished that she wouldn’t wake up.

His touch felt so right, so familiar. His hands pushed her thighs wide, and then there was a soft, cool breath of air against her before he lowered his mouth to her sex.

Kelsey cried out his name and reached down, fisting her hands in his hair. The deep red strands spilled over her belly, hips, and thighs like a cloak as he caught her clit between his teeth and tugged gently.

Arching up, she gasped out his name and said, “Come up here. I want you inside me.”

He laughed huskily and pushed two fingers inside her, pumping them in and out in a fast, shallow rhythm. “Inside you like this?” he teased.

“No . . .” she groaned. “Please—I need more.”

“More. Aye, I’ll give you more,” he muttered as he mounted her. His hips settled between her thighs, and he pushed inside her quick and hard, as though he couldn’t take not being buried inside her anymore. “I’ll give you everything, if you would just come to me.”

“I did. I am . . .”

“Not enough,” he rasped, fisting a hand in her hair and jerking her head back. His mouth pressed against her neck, and she shivered as he raked his teeth down her flesh. “I want more than dreams. I want to feel your flesh, taste your mouth, feel it as you come around me.”

His other hand tightened on her flesh, and he began to slam inside her with near bruising force. “More than this,” he muttered.

Beneath him, Kelsey wailed, arching up, wrapping her legs around his waist, clutching him closer with desperate hands. His own hands came down, catching her legs and working them free. Then he shoved them, pushing her knees up and open. When he slammed into her again, it stole her breath. His cock swelled inside her, huge, hard as iron. The thin line between pleasure and pain blurred, disappeared altogether as he rode her. With deep, powerful thrusts, he pushed her closer and closer to orgasm.

Suddenly, he let go of her thighs, dropped his weight down on top of her. A big hand fisted in her hair, jerked her head to the side. As he struck, Kelsey screamed out his name and came.

 

 

KELSEY CAME AWAKE JUST AS THE CLIMAX STARTED, low in her belly, her sex hot and aching. A man’s face swam before her eyes, and she moaned, flopping onto her belly. Her skin felt tight, too small.

Her heart beat with a force that stole her breath. Desperate, she shoved a hand between her thighs, stroking her clit with quick strokes. She muffled her cries against her pillow as she started to come.

The climax was quick, just barely taking the edge off her driving hunger. Blood rushed to her cheeks as she rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling.

She could remember the dream with startling clarity. Very odd for her. Usually her dreams were foggy, forgotten before she even woke up.

“Helluva dream to remember,” she muttered.

Still hot and breathless, Kelsey kicked the blankets away. Cool air danced over her body, but the fire continued to rage inside her. Finally, she rolled off the bed and strode into the bathroom.

Kelsey turned the shower on, letting the water heat up as she turned and stared at her flushed reflection in the mirror. Her eyes seemed to glitter against her ivory skin, flags of color riding high on her cheeks. With each ragged breath, her breasts rose and fell. Her nipples were tight, flushed a deep pink.

Her lids drooped closed, blocking out the sight of her aroused body as she cupped her hand over her sex. She was fiery hot, wet. And the light touch of her fingers against her flesh was nearly painful, she was so turned on.

Turning away from the mirror, she climbed into the shower and grabbed the showerhead, adjusting the spray to the hard pulsating massage rhythm. It took only a couple of seconds of the pounding spray to bring her to climax. But it wasn’t enough.

 

 

SOMETIMES HE WONDERED WHY HE LOVED THIS LAND so much.

It was brutally cold, even though officially, it was spring. The only way one could tell was by the lengthening of the days. It was still damned cold. Malachi stood on the back porch and stared out over the snow-covered landscape with squinted eyes. The sunlight reflected back in a blinding display of light. Looking at it for too long was almost impossible.

In a few more months, the snow would melt. Just for a little while, though. The winters in Barrow, Alaska, were long, hard, and brutal. Summer here was fleeting, more like spring than true summer.

The sun would shine for hours, and even he would have to seek shelter during the brightest parts of the day. While the sunlight generally presented little threat to him, prolonged exposure could burn his skin. It didn’t get much more prolonged than sunlight for twenty to twenty-four hours a day.

Harsh and barren for most of the year, and intolerable to his kind for the rest of it. So why in the hell did it he love it so much?

Maybe it was because he knew he could find peace here. Barrow was far too close to the poles. The magnetic fields drove witches and shifters nearly mad and played havoc with their gifts.

Vampires weren’t really affected, but none of them liked when the seasons shifted and the days lasted from before six a.m. until midnight. True summer was even worse. That span of weeks when the sun didn’t set at all tried his patience—and he was one of the few who could tolerate sun.

Weaker or younger vampires would be forced to remain indoors for the majority of the summer. Vampires were territorial creatures by nature, and they tended to look for their own bit of land. None would want to make their mark here, knowing that come summer, the days were endless. No normal, sane vampire could tolerate it for long, year after year.

Of course, most would say that Malachi was neither sane nor normal. Short periods of sunlight hadn’t affected him for more than a thousand years. His memories of that long ago were brief, but he figured that he was able to go out in the sunlight before he reached his first century. It wasn’t long after Alys had died. And he knew he hadn’t had long with the woman who had sired him.

As time passed, he could tolerate more and more of the sun’s rays and suspected if he lived long enough, even here, the sunlight wouldn’t affect him.

The solitude was definitely a plus, though.

The towns in northern Alaska were small and didn’t provide for much Hunting ground, but Malachi didn’t need to feed very often. When he did, the small bar usually provided him with what he needed. A soft, warm woman and a bared neck. A few minutes of darkness.

No, he didn’t need to feed often, and it was a damned good thing. Feeding had become a tiresome chore over the past few centuries. There was a time when he had at least felt something when he fed.

Now, on the rare occasion that something penetrated the lassitude that had settled, it was either murderous rage or unfulfilled lust.

Scowling, Malachi shoved away from the wall and stalked back inside. Even simple lust wasn’t something he felt that often anymore.

No. Not simple at all; what he felt went beyond simple lust. It was a hard, driving need that consumed his entire being.

But it was a limited need. He felt it in his dreams—

And with a certain pretty red-haired Hunter with a smart mouth and a talent for making fire. She’d tried to burn him on more than one occasion. Lately, he wished she’d succeeded.

These empty years were already a burden he didn’t wish to bear, and it had only become worse over the past few years. Once, he could at least have a brief respite, wrapped in some woman’s soft arms, riding her until the sun rose high in the sky. Lately?

He wanted only one woman. Well, maybe two.

Kelsey Cassidy, a flesh-blood woman who was determined to keep him at a distance.

And a dream lover—one he had dreamed of for centuries, one he knew he would never completely have.

Malachi scowled at the thought of Kelsey. She was quite content to ignore him. What had happened the last time he had seen her only proved just how wise she was to do so.

Guilt and shame ran through him, knotting his gut. As clearly as if it had just happened, he could remember the burns on her hands. She hadn’t been willing to risk him hurting others, but she’d been perfectly willing to risk herself.

“You should have blasted me with those damned fireballs of yours and been done with it,” Malachi muttered bleakly. Quietly, he closed the door behind him and stared at the sparsely furnished room.

This damned loneliness was killing him; he wished it would hurry up and finish him already. Reaching up, he rubbed the heel of his hand across his chest as he headed for the basement.

Weariness dragged at him like a leaden weight.

But sleep was something to be avoided at all costs. Malachi didn’t need much sleep, but if he went more than a week or so without rest, it started to wear on him. It was pushing nearly two weeks now, and his body was dragging. As the sun started creeping over the horizon, lightening the deep blue of night, Malachi trudged to the basement.

If he was lucky, he could get by with a light catnap.

He should have known better. His head had no more than hit the bare mattress than his eyes closed. Sleep rushed up and pulled him under like some great leviathan, and he was powerless against the dreams that came with it.

She was there.

Almost like she had been waiting for him. He knew her body, every last detail of it, from the heart-shaped birthmark on the back of her hip to the small scar on her left knee. The sleek, smooth line of her back was marred by a thick ridge of tissue that looked like some sort of healded-up burn.

He’d tried before to learn how it happened, but she wouldn’t tell him. She rarely told him anything, and when she did speak, it was often too cryptic for him to understand.

But he knew her, knew her heart. Knew her soul.

What he didn’t know was her name or her face or whether or not she was even real.

Her mouth covered his even as he tried to pull away. Just once, he wanted to see her, but he could no more turn away from that kiss than he could stop these damned dreams.

Centuries after the dreams had started, he was still helpless against them. Helpless against her.

Her hand, warm and soft, closed around the length of his cock, and Malachi groaned, arching into her touch. Her lips left his, and he felt the press of her hand against his head, guiding him to her neck. He pierced the delicate barrier of her skin as his cock sank inside the silken depths of her sex.

Feeding from her, making love to her, it was a bliss unlike any he had ever experienced—outside of his dreams, of course.
Will you ever truly come to me?

She laughed. He could feel the vibrations of it against his lips as he fed. Her hips rocked up, meeting each slow, lazy thrust of his hips. “I would come to you every day if you would stop fighting this. You stay away too long. I miss you,” she murmured, stroking her hands up his arms, her fingers digging into the firm pad of muscles atop his shoulders.

He pulled his mouth from her neck, lingering to lick the tiny wounds in her neck before he turned his head, trying to see her face. He couldn’t. Even though it was bright as noon and he could see her body, when he tried to look at her face, it was like a curtain of fog had been dropped between them. He could feel her, he could touch her—he could sure as hell fuck her—but he couldn’t see her.

“You come to me only in dreams,” he said bitterly, trying to pull away.

Long legs wrapped around his waist, and her hands dipped into his hair, pulling his mouth to hers. “I come to you in the only way I know how. Why punish either of us? This is the only way we can be together for now.”

“The only way”
—Those words echoed through him, and even the last thing she had said,
“for now,”
offered him little hope. There would be nothing for them beyond these dreams.

The emptiness that was his heart grew just a little colder. Malachi wished he had the strength to pull away from her, to tell her to leave. But he didn’t. Banding his arms around her, he started shafting her as deep and hard as he could. The wet slap of flesh filled the air, punctuated by her soft cries and his own ragged groans.