“That doesn’t sound like a good thing.”
“It’s a complicated thing. I should take you back to my home and yet ...”
“You can’t?” she finished for him.
“I won’t.”
He needed her. “Good.” And she needed him. “I don’t want you to.”
A slow smile spread across his features, Sara’s too. Then suddenly, he reached for her and pulled her onto his lap. Sara gasped at the sudden nearness, of the abrupt sexuality of his erection, granite-hard, pressing unapologetically against the back of her thigh. Instinctively, she pushed her hips forward, grazing the head of his cock with her backside.
Alexander’s jaw went rigid and his eyes flashed with predatory fire. “I must have you near,” he uttered. “I must know that you are well, that you breathe, that you smile.”
His words, the low growl from deep in his throat sent shivers up Sara’s spine, made her skin tingle, her nipples harden. She could tell herself over and over that this wasn’t real, that he wasn’t real, that her feelings for him were nothing more than a delusion. But she would be lying. She wanted him, desired him.
His hands found hers, threading his fingers through hers and easing her arms behind her back, making her breasts jut forward. His gaze dropped to her mouth and his lips trembled, the tips of his fangs just visible.
She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to know what his mouth felt like, the warm wetness of his tongue and the thin, sharp jab of his fangs.
“What they said is true,” Alexander said, his gaze, his voice, fierce with emotion and need.
“Who?” she asked, breathless. “Your mother and that jerk?”
He closed his eyes, dropped his head against her breast. “There is an animal in me and it is loose and hungry.”
Heat pooled in Sara’s belly, threatening to sink lower. “What is it hungry for? Blood?”
“You,” he uttered, turning his head, nuzzling her nipple through her thick sweater. “I wish to mark you.”
She shivered at his words, his desire.
He lifted his head, stared at her with eyes cherry black with desire. “I wish to make claim to you—let any male who comes sniffing around you know that you belong to me.” He leaned forward, trailed the thin band of muscle in her neck with his nose, inhaling greedily. “You scent of blood and sex.”
Her hips jerked against his cock. “How would you mark me?”
“It is like a tattoo, but the needle that is used is . . . well, in-house ...”
She gasped as she felt two sharp canines dragging gently across her throat. Her thighs shook now and the little heartbeat hidden within her cunt throbbed.
“Would it hurt?” she asked.
He froze, then lifted his head and held her gaze. He looked deadly serious. “I don’t know, but you’re never going to find out.”
“Why?” The fog in her brain, the raging desire in her body hummed too loudly. She hadn’t heard him right.
“I must protect you,” he said through clenched teeth. “From that little prick of a human, and from myself.”
She eased back then, took his face in her hands—took in the fierce glare, the hard angles, the key-shaped brands, the full lips. “I don’t need protection from you.” She leaned in and brushed her mouth against his. It was the softest of kisses, and yet Alexander exploded with a wicked growl.
“Oh, fuck! No, Sara.” He stood and set her on her feet, then walked to the door that led to the lighthouse balcony and opened it. Frozen sea air wafted into the room, making her shiver.
Bewildered, Sara stared at him, her body raging with both sudden cold and manic desire.
“The Order,” he said, his voice as strained as the hard cock in his pants.
“I know,” she said. She didn’t argue or question. Whatever it was he had—that she’d felt on his lap, in his arms—whatever it was he resisted giving her, she wanted it. For now, she wanted it. “Let’s go.”
He opened his arms and she went to him, curled into his chest, and together they walked outside onto the balcony. With the waves crashing against the exterior of the lighthouse, Alexander closed his eyes, dipped into his mind, and once again, they flew.
15
For Tom Trainer, the pain of having fangs plunged into his skin and his blood drained to the point of near unconsciousness was horrifying in the extreme. And yet it didn’t come close to the pain Dr. Donahue’s rejection caused him.
The massive Impure, Mear, was kind to him, each touch a slow, sweet seduction to his flesh, while the half-breed assured him he was getting stronger and that the commander and his recruits would help him capture the woman who had spurned him and the paven who held her.
Tom shifted uncomfortably on the brown leather couch. They were in Mear’s suite in the commander’s home and it was his turn to drink. It was his third “meal” and he hated it, hated the metallic taste, the thickness of the liquid as it hit his tongue and slid down his throat. But it had already made him stronger, his brain clearer in his goal. His two canines were loose, and as Mear had told him, he would lose them within the month and fangs would begin to grow in their place.
He would be one of them. Almost. An Imiti, Mear called it. A human with vampire qualities. As long as he drank.
Mear turned to him, licked the remaining blood from his lips, and grinned. “Ready?”
Bile rose in Tom’s throat, but he forced a nod, and when Mear slashed his own wrist with one sharp fang and held it to Tom’s lips, Tom shut his eyes and drank.
Anything for her.
Anything.
16
Alexander stood in the middle of a football field, Sara’s arms around him, gripping him possessively. This was not the location, the image, he’d pictured in his mind when they’d flashed a moment ago. He sought the Order, had tried to conjure their image in his head, but it had been pointless. Looking around him now, he had to acknowledge that he had no control over where he flashed and when. The Order had connected with him, and as he’d suspected they would, were messing with him.
He felt Sara’s small, supple body shake. From cold, from desire, from fear? He wasn’t certain, but he pulled her closer. Yes, he’d vowed to protect her, but there was something in him that warned that he needed protection too. A shift had occurred back at the lighthouse—his lighthouse, the one that had once been his salvation, had brought him back to life. A switch had been flipped when he’d heard her speak of her past, her pain, when he’d pulled her onto his lap and her body had responded so intuitively, so perfectly. The craving to mark her wasn’t out of a desperate need to take her blood—that he could understand, he could deal with—that he was accustomed to.
No. The longing that pulsed within him now was something else entirely. He wanted her to feed him, fill him with something greater than blood.
She eased back then, looked up at him with those lovely blueberry eyes. “Any idea where we are, vampire?”
Yes, he thought, as his body pulsed with life, with need. He was well and truly fucked. This woman ruled his heart while the Order ruled his mind.
“Scotland.” He glanced around at the campus, not so very different than it had been a hundred years before. “On the grounds of Creglock Academy.”
“A school?”
“Lucian went here.”
“A vampire school?”
“No. Hard-core military academy for rebellious, law-breaking human children. His mother put him here when he was a balas, not even eight years old, then walked away for good. It was a nightmare. He was a vampire, so he grew slower than the other children.”
Sara looked appalled. “His mother put him in a human school knowing he wouldn’t grow like the other kids, and then never came back? She didn’t even check on him?”
Alexander frowned. It was little wonder that Lucian distrusted all females as he did. “He went from a small vampire credenti outside Glasgow to this. He was broken here, every bit of a young one’s softness destroyed.”