Strong arms closed around her back, pulling her closer to his powerful torso. “Thank you for this gift beyond price. I will treasure it for all eternity.”
She pressed her nose into his neck and inhaled deeply. “Thank you for tonight,” she murmured almost shyly against their link.
A brush of amusement, bloodlust, and tenderness caressed her through their thread.
“The night has just started, my mate.”
* * *
His mate’s silver-white hair was spread over his silken sheets, her eyes glazed and bright with the shy awakening of her sensuality, her slit pink and swollen from his excess, glistening with their combined release. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He had relinquished all concerns that she might get hurt by the brutal pounding as he’d claimed her. Lachlan had slightly lost control, but she had burned right along with him, accepting his rough carnality, surrendering to pleasure several times. She’d moaned his name, over and over, her hands fisting in his hair, holding him to her. Noting the paleness of her skin, and the dark bruises under her eyes, a fierce need to protect her surged through him. He’d taken too much of her blood.
Reaching up with a clawed finger, he sliced into his neck deep. “Come and drink of me.”
The slightest hesitation wafted from her, then she slid along his body with sinuous grace and licked the blood from his neck. Eyes widened, and pleasure flowed along their link. “This is delicious.”
“Suck harder. I took a lot from you, and you need to replenish.”
Her throat worked on a long pull, and then she swallowed. She arched into him, her body soft and pliant. She moaned against his flesh, a breathy little sound that sent a lash of erotic heat rushing through his body. Each stroke of her tongue, tug of her lips, pounded lust through his veins. She pulled from him, pressing a finger to her blood red lips. “How is it that your blood tastes so wonderful to me?”
“We do not know the full of it, but when a Darkan mates with a non-Darkan, there is a craving for each other’s blood, especially during the mating heat.”
He tugged her silky soft curves tight against the hardness of his body. Her eyes widened at the feel of his erection, and shock and intrigue burned along their thread. “Again, Lachlan Ravenswood?”
He stroked his fingers down her cheek, infinitely gentle. “For the entire night, my leika. But not at this moment.”
She stroked a hand over his chest, pleasure curving her lips at the simple act of touching him.
“Come, I shall feed you properly and take you to your sister. Then the rest of the night will belong to us once again.”
The fractured stars that were her eyes seemed to brighten, and she moved away from him to her satchel holding her clothes. He watched her as she went into the bath chamber and took a quick bath and dressed. He felt fascinated by her energy, the quick, lithe way she walked, her shimmering sensuality. He felt the ebb of the connection between them, the sharing of mind and body, the dark flow of his blood rushing through her veins. He’d been half alive for four hundred years…and now every dark crevice of his being hungered for her light.
I am bewitched.
16
Shilah stirred sleepily, pushing back the curtain of her silver hair from her face. The overly large bedchamber was lit with dozens of great torches, and a steaming bath which had not been present earlier was now in the center of the room. The tattered remains of her sari littered the plush carpeted floor. Free of sensual distractions, she glanced about, admiring the raw elegance of the room.
Windows encased an entire wall of the palatial chamber, and fluorescent flowers crept along the glass on vines. Somehow, she could smell the unique flowers hovering in the darkness beyond, hear the cries of wild creatures, the gurgling of a stream, and the thunderous roar of a waterfall. It was as if the castle was in the center of a wild forest, and its king was Lachlan Ravenswood—a dark, merciless predator.
She slowly pushed herself up from off the bed, her legs trembled, but she forced herself to stand. The softness of the green carpet tickled her toes, and she took a tentative step and halted. Shilah winced at the ache between her legs. She moved slowly to the bath, faltered at the large glinted mirror before it, and gasped. She looked a fright with her damp hair pasted to her nape. There were red strawberry marks everywhere on her body—her throat, breasts, stomach, and thighs. Those were the places he had nibbled and licked, sometimes nipping with his fangs. Her lips were red and swollen, and she pressed trembling fingers to her mouth.
At some time during their sensual feast, Lachlan had speared his clawed tipped fingers into the silken weight of her hair, bunching the strands in his hands as he held her head in place, staring down at her as he fucked her mouth with slow, shallow strokes. Connected deep to his mind, she explored him, lashing him with tormented pleasure. Her entire body blushed red at the carnal memory. How thorough he had been in his debauchery and cruel sensuality. Sweat had run in rivulets down her skin as he had taken her for hours, riding her through multiple orgasms.
His features never softened to that of a gentle lover. There had been a time her thighs had trembled with the effort to remain open, and he had flipped her to her stomach and drew her to her knees, or atop him. He had been without mercy to her hoarse screams, the hands that twisted the sheets as he took her body to the utmost heights of terrifying pleasure. There had been times when the erotic bite of
pain had overwhelmed the pleasure. Those were the times he’d stopped, and took her pussy in his mouth, licking and sucking on her center bringing her to orgasm over and over before mounting her again.
Their hours of loving had been wicked, hedonistic, and Shilah sensed on a deep level she would never experience such shattering bliss with another. “And I would do it all over again,” she whispered to her shattered reflection.
She pressed a hand to the smooth curvatures of her stomach, knowing their mating would not result in a child. Yearning struck her heart, the desperate ache of it smarting her eyes. If only it were possible. She was up to date with an injection that prevented unplanned conception. There were at least ten more years before the nanotechnology would disintegrate through her bloodstream. Not that if conception occurred, she could have kept her child in her realm. As an Impure, she was already condemned to a solitary existence. Crown Princess or not, she would be punished to the full extent of the law if she knowingly created life with the knowledge she was a multi-genesis, threatening the safety of an entire planet.
Lachlan Ravenswood made her hunger for impossible things. Shilah had wanted to stay cocooned in the lust he’d stoked in her. The guilt of wanting to be free, never to return to her kingdom almost felled her. She had momentarily yearned to be unshackled from it all and drown herself in the heat, taste, and scent, and a life with him, filled with possibilities of happiness that could not be attained living in Dxyriah.
She felt a peculiar wrenching in the vicinity of her heart. She was perilously close to falling into this man, and that was a situation her kingdom could not afford. It was to only be one night, she reminded herself fiercely, hating the prick of tears behind her lids. “Kala are you well?” she asked knocking at the psychic door of her sister’s mind.
“Yes.”
Shilah frowned. “You are distressed.”