My Lady Vampire - Book Three (25 page)

“I’m afraid.”

Adrian wasn’t quite sure where that had come from, but it was the truth. He was deeply and profoundly afraid.

“I know. So am I.” Katherine came up behind him and hugged him. “But we are together. That means more than any of Sir Sidney’s potions.”

He sighed. “I wish I had your faith in our combined strength.”

She eased his jacket from his shoulders and slipped her hands around him to find his bare skin beneath his shirt. “It’s not our strength, Adrian. It’s our love. Our love that gives us not only strength, but courage. And fear. All these things work together and make us more than what we are apart.” She teased at his chest, raking him gently with her nails. “And it’s so much more than Thérèse could ever imagine. I doubt that she believes such a thing possible, let alone being prepared to face it.”

Adrian sighed. “I hope you’re right.”

She turned him and finished unbuttoning his shirt. “I’m sure I am. Just as I am equally sure…” Her fingertips found his nipples and played with them, scratching them gently until they beaded into hard peaks. “I am equally sure I have a husband who drives me wild.”

He watched the blue fire in her eyes as she stripped his clothes from him, touching him with her lips, seducing him with little licks of her tongue, and smiling all the while.

“Enjoying yourself?” His eyebrow rose as he grinned at her.

“Immensely. Sit down.” She pushed him back on to the bed and dodged his arms as he reached for her. “Not yet, dear sir. I think you shall have to wait a little.”

“Aaahh.” He recognized her intentions--to distract him from his fears and concerns. It probably wouldn’t work, but who was he to stop her from her fun? Perhaps she would find a measure of forgetfulness as well.

“What next?” He folded his arms and waited.

“Well…” She chewed her lower lip for a moment, then snapped her fingers. “Of course. Silly me. I need to undress.”

“Yes, you do.”

With great attention to detail, Adrian’s wife began a leisurely removal of her clothes. Button by button, lace by lace, agonizingly slowly, Kat divested herself of her garments. Adrian was hard as a rock before she’d shed her chemise, and when she did--leaving her clad only in stockings held above the knee by tied garters--he nearly lost control.

She was beautiful in more ways than one. Her eyes shone with love and desire, her body moistened and scented the air as she lusted for him, and her lips were wet and swollen from the passage of her tongue seductively over them as she undressed.

His wonderful, unpredictable mate was seducing him. And it was working. Extremely well.

Adrian shifted on the bed, his cock a heavy throbbing length resting along one thigh. He saw Kat’s gaze drop to look at it, and once again that tongue swiped a path over those lips.

His body responded, and silently Adrian parted his knees, giving her a better look.

“Mmmm.” She sank down before him and gently took him in her hands.

“Kat…you don’t have to…” His words stopped short as Katherine sucked him fully into her mouth and back as far as she could down her throat

Heat flooded him, an unusual sensation that made him gasp. Every time they loved, he found more and more of his capacities returning. This was a slow sweep of desire that he could swear warmed his blood above its usual chilly temperature.

His fangs responded to the sensual act, breaking free of his gums and lying hard on his lips. He did not try to hide them--Kat knew who and what he was. It was liberating to be able to enjoy her mouth like this and not pretend. Not fight for control nor feel the need to conceal his nature from her.

Her tongue learned him, sucking hard then gentling the ridges and veins that rippled over his cock. She tasted the tiny drop of moisture he could feel oozing from the tiny slit and slicked her mouth over him with enthusiasm, making him groan and move with pleasure. Every now and again she dared to let her teeth scrape against his skin just for a second or two, adding a little almost-pain to the mix of sensual ecstasy she was creating.

She ventured further, finding his balls with her hand and cupping them, holding them delicately and moving the sac as if weighing it. The twin sensations drove Adrian wild and he groaned once more. “Oh God, Kat…so good.”

His head fell back and he closed his eyes, his entire world narrowed down to one woman, one mouth, one tongue.

She took him to the brink--then stopped.

Adrian gasped and panted and waited…waited for the next loving lick that he knew would send him over the edge.

But it never came.

He opened bleary eyes, tried to focus on her, and moaned. “Shit, Kat. What are you doing to me?”

A light chuckle answered his words. “Driving you insane?”

“It’s working.” He pushed himself up on his elbows, cock erect and glistening. “Take me, woman. Touch me. Climb on top of me and fuck me--God, do
something
. I’m begging you here…”

Soft breasts rubbed over his bent knees, an erotic sensation he didn’t expect.

“I want it all, Adrian. Everything you have.”

“Put your mouth back where it was and you shall have it. That’s a promise I know I can keep.” He gritted his teeth at the mere thought.

“That’s not enough.” She slid her body over him, being careful not to arouse him any more than she had already. His cock was free between them, hard and anxious now for release.

“What more do you want, love? Name it. It’s yours.” He panted as her breasts grazed his chest and she straddled him, still holding her body high above that hard piece of flesh she’d loved so skillfully.

“I want your trust, Adrian. I’m your wife. I want it
all.
”

Slowly, oh-so-slowly, she slid her silky-slick sheath down onto his cock, wedding them in the perfect melding of male and female. It was a hot cradling of his body, a wet glove encompassing him and enfolding him fully within her.

Amazingly, she sat on him, holding herself erect, and squeezed him with her inner muscles.

He swore his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “Jesus Christ Almighty, Kat.”

“Mmm.” She grinned. “D’you like that? I do. It feels…good.”

“
Yessss…
” He sighed as Kat began to move--too slowly. “Kat…faster, my love. Please…don’t torture me like this…”

She laughed, a low seductive laugh that made Adrian want to rip into her and drink everything that she was.

His hunger was building along with his need to explode within her. She was playing with fire and he wasn’t sure how long he could keep his personal damper over the chimney.

“You can take it, Adrian.” She rode him at a leisurely pace, each downward thrust a deliciously agonizing tease of that which was to come.

He reached for her, pushing her thighs wide and lifting his head to watch her pussy as it rose and fell on him. She was wet and swollen and pink, gleaming with her sweet honey.

He licked his lips, feeling his fangs ache as he did so.

Another lift--another drop, and he was so close to screaming he shuddered with the force of it, and yet she did not allow him the final moment, pulling herself away again with maddening skill.

“
Enough.”
He cried out the word, barking harshly as his balls solidified beneath his cock and his body trembled with the onrush of his orgasm. “
Enough
Kat.”

He rolled them both, strong limbs tumbling her pale flesh beneath him. He was lost in her scent, the feel of her and his need to take her, pound into her pussy until he spent his last drop.

“Yes, Adrian, do it.
Do
it, my love.” She cried out too, words that made no sense until she grabbed his head at the last moment.

He exploded inside her just as she thrust her neck into his mouth, his fangs scratching her skin and finally breaking through.

“
Drink
, Adrian.
Feed
from me. ‘Tis the only way. I want this. I want all of you.” She clenched her inner walls around his cock, milking his seed. At the same instant she thrust her skin deeper onto his fangs letting her blood flow over them and into his mouth.

He was totally unable to resist the lure of her body--or her sweetly wonderful blood.

Adrian broke his promise to himself. He fed.

On his wife.

Chapter Nineteen

Katherine felt a split-second of exquisite agony and then her orgasm roared over her, coupled with the lightheaded and erotic sensation of Adrian’s fangs in her neck.

She could feel him drinking, sucking from her and sending shivers of sensual lightning bolts to her breasts and her pussy. Her climax shattered her, propelling her into a vortex of pleasure where there were no boundaries, no dimensions--only colors and the mad bliss of release.

She merged with Adrian in an inexplicable way, his feeding opening his thoughts and his heart to her as she opened her veins to him. They linked souls in that moment, and she felt the pulsations of his cock as clearly as if they were her own. She felt her own body as it clamped on him, and tasted herself as her blood flowed across his tongue.

Her breasts swelled against his chest and her nipples were almost painful as her whole body tumbled through a massive spasm of sexual release. She wondered if she’d survive. If Adrian would be able to stop before the end.

At that moment, she did not care. He could take what he needed to survive, to defeat the evil confronting them. He would be able to save more innocent souls. What did anything else matter next to that? And next to Adrian’s survival, hers was less than important. She realized in that instant how deeply she loved him.

She was, quite literally, giving her life
for
him and
to
him.

And it would appear he knew it. The moment his cock eased he tore his mouth from her with a cry from his heart that brought tears to Katherine’s eyes.

“Nooooo…”

“Yes.” She whispered the word as she fell limply back onto the bed, tired to her very core and weak now that he’d fed.

“God fucking
damn
. What have I done?” Adrian pulled free of her body and dropped down beside her, lifting her in his arms and cupping her cheek. “Kat--why? Why did you let me?”

“I wanted you to, Adrian.” She swallowed, fighting a darkness that began to blur the edges of her vision. “It was the only way. You had to be strong, strong enough to defeat Thérèse. That’s what matters. You must save…save St. Chesswell.”

Her heart was pounding, working harder now that there was less blood to pump. The sound was deafening, and she closed her eyes against the insistent drumbeat as it threatened to overwhelm her.

“I won’t lose you, my Kat. I’ve just found you. Please--stay with me. I need
you
more than anything in this world--”

His words penetrated the fog surrounding her and she managed a smile. “I love you, Adrian. I always will.”

“I love you too.” His hand turned her chin. She could feel it, but was now powerless to move, her life fading as she lay in his arms. “I love you more than life itself. I can’t allow this to happen. I will not. You are my
wife
…” It was a sob, a plea and a prayer.

The pain she felt was his
and
hers. She tried to shake her head, but her muscles were locked, useless bunches of flesh that simply held her bones together.

Then something forced her lips apart and she sensed--
tasted
something sweet and rich…

- - - -

The storm was closer now, nearly breaking over St. Chesswell, as Adrian strode in to his father’s study.

“I am ready. I don’t care where she is, I shall destroy her tonight.”

Sidney stared at him, amazed at the vitality radiating from every pore of Adrian’s body. “You fed, didn’t you? From Katherine?”

Adrian gulped. “I didn’t want to, I swear. It was never in my heart or my plans, father. She…she drove me to it. It was as if…”

“She knew what she had to do, Adrian.” Sidney touched his son’s shoulder in a gesture of comfort. “The blend of your blood with hers is quite extraordinary. We discussed it. And we both knew there was no other option.”

Adrian’s face creased with a look of distress. “And neither of you thought to tell
me
?”

“What would you have said?”

“I would have refused. Utterly and completely.”

Sidney nodded. “We thought so. This was Katherine’s decision to make, Adrian, not yours. Respect the love she has for you. Understand her need to protect you in any way she can. She is a good woman. And she knew what had to be done.”

“I can’t like it, father. I cannot condone it. If I’ve caused her death…” Adrian shivered.

“Is she…” Sidney couldn’t finish the question. In spite of his love for Adrian, he’d grown to admire and care for Katherine as well.

“She’s sleeping right now. Still alive, but barely.” Adrian’s voice was brusque, but Sidney could detect the pain lying beneath the words. His son shrugged it off. “Another debt I owe Thérèse. She shall pay in full this night. I am off to the Chyne. The bitch will be there, I can feel it.”

“Yes.” Sidney reached for his coat.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Adrian stood with his hands on his hips as his father slipped on his coat and carefully loaded two dueling pistols.

“I’m coming with you, of course.” Sidney didn’t look up from his task until both pistols were primed and ready. He put them into each large pocket. “There. Now we’re ready.”

He snapped his fingers. “Damn, no. One thing more.” He reached for two small glass vials and passed one to his son. “The holy water. A little insurance, but I still put my faith in good old fashioned gunpowder.”

“Father…you know I cannot permit this.” Adrian stood firm. “You can’t hope to take on Thérèse. She is not…human.” He swallowed. “I will not risk you too.”

Sidney’s heart turned over. Truly Adrian was his son. He could have asked for no better had he sired this man himself.