“No,” he said hoarsely.
“You gave me your blood,” she reminded him. “Now I give you mine, freely and gladly.”
Theron, Sergius and Emma arrived a moment later, forming a tense tableau behind Damon, Alexia and the human woman. Alexia pressed her soft, supple body to Damon’s back, her arms wrapping around his waist.
“Come with me now,” she said. “You want me, Damon. And I want you. In every way.”
Chapter 16
At first Alexia wasn’t sure she’d reached him. He didn’t move; every muscle was rigid in a battle for control, and if he could see her he showed no sign.
But he heard her. Slowly he turned, forgetting the petite, dark-haired woman who had been so willing to share the very essence of life with a man she didn’t know.
But she had no right. Damon had hidden the extent of his need from Alexia, and in spite of—no, because of—Lysander’s remark about Damon’s hunger, Alexia had pretended she didn’t recognize the signs.
Now they were unmistakable. She was responsible for his condition, because she had been afraid. Afraid of her own need for him, both physical and emotional. Afraid of letting herself become a mere source of nourishment, no different from the human convicts in Erebus. Afraid of forging the final link in the chain that bound her and Damon together.
She had hated what Damon had done to her when they’d arrived at the colony, even though she had agreed to the necessity of becoming his serf. He had almost managed to convince her that it was not merely a ruse, that all her doubts since their last conversation in camp were justified and that somehow she had missed a crucial element of Damon’s character. For a few terrifying minutes, she had believed the life she had always known was over.
But even if the colony had been what she and Damon had both believed, a place where Opiri might be free but humans were still cattle, she would not have denied him now.
“He must have fresh blood from a vein if he is to take full benefit,” Theron had said.
Even if the blood in the glass had given him the energy to move again, it could not sustain him long.
“Come,” she said again, offering her hand.
When he finally reacted, it was not to take her hand but to sweep her up in his arms and carry her off to the nearest building, one much like Theron’s and no more than a dozen meters away. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her face into the hollow of his shoulder, where she could hear and feel his blood moving sluggishly through his veins.
I’m not afraid, she told herself with wonder. I’m not afraid.
Without pausing to see if anyone was in the house, Damon kicked the door open and strode inside. Sergius had brought a lantern into Theron’s house to provide light for human eyes, but this single room was dark. It smelled of Sergius.
If Damon was aware of the scent, he ignored it. A low cot similar to Theron’s stood against the wall in the far corner of the room. Damon carried Alexia to it and laid her down with a gentleness she hadn’t expected. He gazed into her eyes, and once again she saw a war within him: savage instinct against concern and something akin to shame.
She reached up to touch his face. “It’s all right, Damon,” she whispered. “This is what I want.”
Her words seemed to release the terrible tension in Damon’s body. He put one knee on the edge of the cot and his arms to each side of her head, opened his mouth and bit her.
The instructors at Aegis had tried to explain what being bitten would feel like, intending to prepare operatives for the experience and help them avoid the natural panic they would feel if they ever faced such a situation. But classroom theory had never been put into practice, for no Opiri were allowed in the Enclave, and dhampires were taught to loathe the idea of taking blood.
Now Alexia knew how inadequate that theory had been. She gasped and closed her eyes, her senses exploding with pleasure that radiated out from the point where Damon’s teeth pierced her skin. In a distant part of her mind she asked herself if this was what all humans experienced, but she already knew the answer. For if they did...oh, if they did...
Her thoughts disintegrated as Damon’s tongue stroked the curve of her neck, his warm mouth moving over her skin in a way every bit as erotic as his lips on her nipples or between her thighs. She arched against him, urging him to drink deeper still. He moaned inside his throat, and she could feel the pressure of his erection against her thigh as he straddled her. He slid his hand down along her belly to the drawstring waistband of her pants and beneath, reaching the nest of curls. Alexia gasped as he found her clitoris with his thumb and began to stroke it in time to the rhythmic motions of his lips and tongue.
Reckless with excitement, Alexia pushed her arm between her chest and his, feeling for the fly of his pants. But he trapped her hand with his free one and, withdrawing his other hand from within her pants, lifted himself on his arms and moved his mouth from her neck.
She groaned in protest, but he silenced her with his lips on hers. They still tasted of her blood. He kissed her, touching her tongue with his, as if he would devour her completely. He pushed her arms above her head and began to lift the hem of her shirt.
Alexia helped him, seething with impatience to feel his mouth on her breasts and something more substantial than his fingers between her thighs.
The shirt came off, and Damon tossed it aside. A second later he was at her throat again, this time biting the other side of her neck, carrying her to that indescribable, euphoric state she hadn’t believed could possibly exist.
It didn’t last. It couldn’t. But when Damon licked the blood from her skin, sealing the wound and trailing his mouth down to her breasts, she remembered that there were a thousand other ways of pleasure she could give and receive without any blood at all.
As Damon’s lips closed on her taut nipple, Alexia laced her fingers in his hair and whispered encouragement he obviously didn’t need. He suckled her breast with the same hunger with which he had taken her blood. He reached down again, finding his way to her waistband, and dragged the pants down to her hips. She wriggled under him, freeing herself to the knees, gasping as he moved to her other breast.
Somehow, between them, they managed to get her pants off. Damon sent them to the floor with a nudge of his knee and rolled his tongue in tight circles around her nipples, first one and then the other. His palm curled under her waist, lifting, positioning her so that her thighs spread wide without any help from her.
Once again he found the almost painful ache beneath her damp curls, but this time he slid his finger past her clitoris and between the hot, wet lips. He stroked his finger slowly from front to back, dipped it inside her and slowly pushed until his finger was all the way in. Alexia strained against him. He began to move his finger in and out as his thumb found her clitoris again. Just when she was certain she was going to come, he withdrew his finger and began kissing his way down from her breasts to her belly.
Even though she knew what was coming, she wasn’t prepared when his lips and tongue replaced his finger. He licked along the same path his finger had taken, sliding between her swollen lips, teasing her clitoris and finally reaching the molten center of her need. He stiffened his tongue and pushed it inside. Alexia thrashed on the cot, lifting her legs higher, knowing she couldn’t stand much more. She had to have him inside her, all of him. Now.
He didn’t make her wait much longer. Suddenly his shirt and pants were gone, too, and his hot, naked flesh was pressed to her body. She reveled in the feel of firm muscle flexing as he positioned himself between her legs.