Powerful Awakening [L.U.S.T. 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (4 page)

Gideon’s face, so much like Michael’s it was as if he were looking in a mirror every time Michael gazed at his brother, softened. Concern and compassion swirled in the bluest depths of his eyes and, for a moment, his mouth worked, but no words came out.

Gideon bowed his head briefly, then met Michael’s gaze with a steadier, stronger one of his own. “It’s been more than a hundred and fifty years since that night. If Andrew had been changed rather than killed, don’t you think you, above anyone else on this planet, would have known it by now?”

Michael stopped a few inches from his brother and flattened his right hand over his heart. “I cannot deny what I feel here in this moment.” He touched his temple with the index finger of his left hand. “No matter what logical conclusions this might tell me.”

Gideon pushed a hard breath from his lungs. “And you’re not going to listen until we confront this lycan face-to-face.”

Michael lifted a brow. “Is that not what you were headed out of that door to do before you stopped to look at me as if I had fallen off my rocker?”

“Werewolf for lycan.” Gideon shrugged, then pointed a finger at his chest again. “I, being the prime werewolf in this establishment, intended to go make sure this lycan intruder doesn’t have anything more on his mind than having a good time tonight. A good time,” he added as he started to turn, “that involves only drinks and dancing and not unleashing a beast on our human crowd.”

Michael followed Gideon to the door, wondering if having the werewolf on his side would be necessary when he faced off with the man he had loved nearly half of his human life and every dark day of his eternal one. “Those are truly noble intentions, brother. Are you saying now they have changed?”

Gideon shot him a look over his shoulder as he opened the office door. “Nope, just got a little more complicated. Now, I’ve got to prove you wrong so I can poke jabs at you for the next century about what a mushy, sorry dude you are to have never let him go.”

Michael sighed, shook his head, and started to speak, but thought better of it. Gideon didn’t know what it felt like to fall in love with one person, let alone two. He had never been given the gift of experiencing the all-consuming bond one felt when he found his soul mate.

Michael had felt it twice, first with Andrew and then with Rebecca, and it had been ripped from him twice, first with Rebecca’s death and then with Andrew’s.

Only Andrew is not dead, now is he?

Anger more intense than any he had felt in decades coursed through Michael’s system, shocking him to the depths of his blackened heart. He balled his hands into fists at his sides as he followed Gideon down the long, dark hall and up first one flight of stairs and then another until they stepped onto the balcony level of Club Lust.

They weaved their way through the crowd of partiers, shouldering between two groups, and planting themselves at the rail. Below, the crowd was thicker, the atmosphere hazy thanks to the pyrotechnics set to go off at even intervals throughout the night. Flashes and streams of neon lights broke the cloudy darkness, illuminating bodies packed together tightly enough to put a can of sardines to shame. On the dance floor, more bodies moved in a free-for-all of wild spins, flying arms, pumping groins, and slithering torsos to the thumping techno beat of a song Michael recognized.
Hands Up.
According to Gideon, it had been voted the best techno song of the last year. Michael would prefer the smooth flow of a piano or even the twang of a country song to this music any day.

“Son of a bitch.”

Despite the deafening volume in the club, Michael easily heard Gideon’s quiet expletive. The fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he followed his brother’s gaze to the left of the dance floor, easily seeing through the darkness and the fog as though the room were completely clear. There, sectioned off from the crowd, stood Andrew, obviously very much alive and not appearing to be a day older than he had been over one hundred and fifty years ago.

“Who is proving whom wrong now, brother?” Michael’s voice came out steady and conversational, not betraying a modicum of the rage boiling in his gut or the pain slicing at his heart. The bastard had lived. He had been changed, not slain, and Michael had known nothing of it.

Michael let his gaze drop to Andrew’s feet and slowly climb up again. The man wore clean white tennis shoes, blue jeans that looked as if they had just come off the department store shelf, and a black button-down shirt that fit his trim, muscular body to sheer perfection. His dirty-blond hair was cut short, the strands falling in waves away from a face contoured by a pair of absolutely perfect cheekbones, a strong jaw, and truly arresting hazel eyes.

Those eyes looked up at Michael as if he had beckoned the man’s attention. Perhaps he had and didn’t realize he had done so. Michael met Andrew’s gaze, raised his mental shields to close off his thoughts, and masterfully controlled his anger. He held Andrew’s gaze for the beat of a normal heart, then tore his concentration away, and looked at Andrew’s companion.

The sensation that slammed into him at the sight of the woman felt like a physical blow to the gut. Michael nearly doubled over from it as the past of bright light and darkness threatened to swallow him.

“By the Gods.” Michael barely heard his own whisper, hardly felt his lips move as her mocha eyes lifted, her gaze hesitating before locking onto his.

“Do you know the woman he’s with? Who is she?”

Michael heard Gideon, but couldn’t respond. Understanding of the something more, the something deeper than the power of a lycan he had felt in the office coursed through his system. He stared at the blonde, tearing his gaze from hers long enough to take in the angelic features of her face, the fullness of her breasts, the slenderness of her body, and knew Andrew was not the only one to come back to him tonight.

“Rebecca.” The name rolled off his lips, tasting bittersweet as the heightened senses of the vampire he had become joined with the emotions of the man he had once been. Together, they dismissed the fact that the outer shell of the woman he was looking at was different, and embraced the knowledge that the soul it contained was indeed the woman he had lost so long ago.

* * * *

Andrew saw Gideon first. He had expected that. A werewolf’s finely honed sense of smell, even in human form, allowed him to recognize when a lycan was near without the need of being face-to-face. He had expected Gideon to feel him, too, to get a strong awareness of his presence no matter where the werewolf had been in the club.

He hadn’t expected the jolt he would feel when he lifted his gaze, sliced it over the werewolf, then landed it on Michael. They weren’t just brothers. They were twins, equally handsome from the roots of their ebony hair to the soles of their feet. But it was the quick glance into Gideon’s eyes before Andrew’s gaze locked with Michael’s that had given him the true shock of the past. Gideon, though a werewolf now, maintained the human appearance the twins had shared since birth. There had always been subtle differences. Gideon had preferred his ebony hair to brush his shoulders, while Michael kept his neatly above his nape. Gideon’s strong chin and square jaw had always been accented by stubble, while Michael never missed a day of shaving. Still, neither difference had ever taken away the effect of their soft midnight-blue eyes.

The change hadn’t affected Gideon’s eyes, but Michael’s now matched his hair, standing out in a direct contrast to his paler skin amongst all the black. Even in the distance, Andrew noted the swirl of red outlining that black of Michael’s eyes as their gazes locked. The jolt he had felt only intensified as more than a century of longing, sorrow, and love twisted a knot in his chest. He may not be looking into the same eyes of his lover from the past. He was certain the man inside the handsome flesh had changed as well. But the feelings they had shared, the depth of their connection, remained.

Look at me.

Andrew heard Michael’s voice in his head, the deep melodic timbre that still held the faintest hint of the South. He didn’t believe Michael meant to speak in his mind. The fact that he had only showed how completely Andrew’s presence here tonight had caught the vampire off guard. Michael was angry. Andrew would be forced to take the brunt of that fury and he wouldn’t fight back. He would control his beast while Michael unleashed his own and would only pray he lived through it in the end.

Andrew felt an arm snake around his waist, jerking him from his trance. Chrystal moved in closer, molding her body to his as her fingers closed tightly on his side. He heard her heart skip a beat before picking up speed, heard her breaths become ragged, and felt her quiver. She wouldn’t understand why, wouldn’t know that the power moving over her, seeping into her came from not only his strengths as a lycan and Michael’s as a vampire, but the connection the three of them had shared so long ago.

“Who is that?”

Andrew easily heard her quiet whisper and gave her credit for a quick recovery, if only in her voice. Her heart still raced, her breaths continued to come in quick and uneven pants, her body still quivered, but her question came out steady. His recovery wasn’t so brisk. He glanced down at her to find her not looking at him, but up into the second floor balcony, up directly into Michael’s eyes.

It took him a moment to sort through the riot of sensations surging at top speed into a collision of dramatic explosions in his system before he could respond. Memories of the woman she had been when she had last pressed her amazing body against his, when he and Michael had sandwiched her between them as they pleasured her pussy and ass, of the last time the three of them had been together that fateful night, swamped him. He wondered if any part of her soul recollected anything of the life she had lived as Rebecca Tucker.

Andrew leaned down, nuzzling his lips against her ear, and closed his eyes as the warmth of her flesh, the sweet mix of her perfume and natural scent stirred the blood in his cock. He’d meant to get closer so she could hear him over the nearly deafening volume of the club. He hadn’t meant to tempt himself, beast or man, into licking the curve of her earlobe. His mouth watered and he swallowed, hearing the beast inside him growl even as his cock pulsed, both in hungry protest.

“That’s Michael Delacroix. He owns the club. The man next to him is his brother, Gideon.”

“Michael. He’s…”

Andrew studied her more closely. Her gaze hadn’t moved from Michael. Had the vampire put her into a trance? Was he speaking to her in her mind?

I am doing nothing to her. Calm her if you can and meet me in the men’s room on the main floor.

Andrew heard Michael’s smooth, elegant voice in his mind, and watched as the vampire turned and disappeared from sight. Only then did Chrystal look up at him. Confusion swirled in her coffee-brown eyes.

“Are you alright?” He knew what had happened and Michael’s vampiric powers of telepathy had nothing to do with it. She’d had the same reaction when she’d looked into Andrew’s eyes the first time.

“Yeah, I just…” She shook her head, loosened her hold on his side, and gave a half laugh. “Wow!” She looked around, her gaze slicing over the balcony where the twins had stood, then seemed to take in the crowd around them before looking back at him. “This place is great. We should dance. And get a drink,” she added as though it were an afterthought.

Andrew’s attention dropped to her mouth as the tip of her tongue peeked out to lick her lips. His gaze followed the path of her tongue. Desires he was finding more difficult by the moment to keep in check twisted around his heart and stiffened his cock.

He tore his gaze away, spotted a cocktail waitress headed toward them, and smiled down at her. “Why don’t you order us something? I need to pay a visit to the men’s room. Will you be okay alone while I’m gone?”

Amusement lit her angelic face. “I’m a big girl, Andrew. I think I can handle being alone in a crowded club for a few minutes.”

Her arm fell from his waist and he immediately felt the absence of her warmth. He allowed himself a small touch, a simple glide of one finger down the side of her face, and nodded. “I’ll be right back.”

Forcing himself to ignore the tingling in the tip of the finger he had used to touch her that spread through his system on a direct course to his aching cock and balls, he pivoted and wound his way through the crowded club. He gave a curt nod to the two human males walking out of the men’s room when he reached it, stepped inside, and closed the door behind him. A quick glance and a deep breath assured him the bathroom was empty.

Power blanketed him in a nanosecond. He found himself being lifted several inches off his feet and slammed into the marble wall behind him before he could react. Andrew’s breath left him on a whoosh of painful surprise as the blow reverberated through his body. Michael held him there, the front of his shirt bunched in the man’s fist.

“I should kill you now.” Michael spit the words in Andrew’s face.

“You could try.” Andrew acknowledged the fact that it would be a hell of a battle, though he didn’t doubt if brute strength and power collided with brute strength and power he would win in the end. The abilities of the lycans had outweighed those of the vampires since the beginning of time. “And I would probably let you.”

Andrew knew he took a risk by staring into the eyes of a vampire as powerful as Michael. The man could easily put him under some sort of spell. Not that it would matter. Andrew had been under Michael’s spell even when they had both been humans. As he gazed at Michael now, he saw the fury blazing hot in the depths of his black eyes. He saw the memories, too, the love they had shared, the surprise that they were once again face-to-face, and the pain that all their years apart had created.