“Severo, I’m honored.”
“It is I who is honored, Princess.” He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. He nodded to the Council members, and addressed a few. “Nikolaus. Ivan. Ravin.”
“What are you doing here, Severo?” Creed stepped forward.
The last wolf in the world Blu expected to side with vampires was Stephen Severo. He had lost his family to vampire hunters, had watched them string his parents up as pelts, and then witnessed them shift to human shape in death. He had been enslaved by the vampires, and had narrowly escaped being bitten.
And yet, Severo’s wife, a woman he’d met as a mortal, had been recently changed to a vampire.
“Most of you know I’m not much for vampires,” Severo stated. He shrugged his shoulders and the leather duster coat swept about his knees. “There are precious few I trust, which includes the Drakes. Of course I love my wife. But I am appalled after hearing what went down last night. The wolves acted out of order. They are my former pack. Amandus Masterson has always had the wrong goals. I’m here to help. Tell me what you’ve planned.”
Blu squeezed his hand and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.”
The man was a lone wolf, not allied to any pack. What he was doing would have repercussions, but not so dangerous as if he were in a pack. He risked being
shunned, but obviously he was fine tucked away sharing a life with his wife.
“We’re not sure,” Creed provided. “What the hell can we do?”
Severo’s eyes swept the room, taking in the line of witches at the kitchen counter. “Why not a spell? It’s been done before with the Protection.”
“Like what?” Ravin crossed the room. “Make all werewolf blood poisonous to vampires? That’s so been done, and I don’t think it would be as effective. It’s not like the vamps ever try to bite the wolves. I hear wolf blood is pretty nasty.”
The petite witch didn’t so much as flinch when Severo growled at her.
Blu decided she liked Ravin, even if the witch hated Creed. She was sure there were many who had issues with her husband. A man couldn’t live for nine centuries and not gather a few enemies.
“A spell might work.” Ivan Drake put a finger to his lips in thought. Tallest in the room, and once the devil Himself’s bounty hunter, the man’s commanding mien drew attention. “But not the blood. Something subtler. Dez, what do you think?”
“I can consult the Book of All Spells. If there’s a base spell, something we could use to begin with, I can then master a greater spell. If you’ll let me use the bedroom,”
Dez said to Blu, “I’ll call up the Grande Grimoire and look through it.”
“Come with me.” Blu led the witch toward the bedroom. She grabbed the wet towels from the bed and tossed them in a pile near the chair. “Where is it?”
“The book?” The witch waited at the end of the bed, slender fingers folded together. “It’s out there—” she looked up and aside “—in the otherworld. It’s where I keep all my important stuff. I won’t call it to me until you’ve left the room.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Starting for the door, Blu paused. “You married your enemy?”
“Ivan’s a complicated bit of man,” she offered. “He was born to a witch and a vampire, so he’s never known prejudice against my kind. I can’t imagine how hard it’s been for you, being forced to marry your enemy.”
“I didn’t like it at first, but I love Creed. The whole drawing a line in the sand because someone is different than you seems so silly now.”
“It is silly.” She approached Blu and touched the ends of her hair, still wet from the shower. “But you still fear him. There’s something about Creed you’re not completely sure about.”
Blu looked down. “It’s just all men in general.”
“I don’t know him,” Dez said, “but I get a feeling for him when standing close. He’s strong and proud. A hard
man to change. But he genuinely loves you. I feel that, too. Don’t be afraid of the things he can give you, Blu. And in turn, you give him what’s for, too. Okay?”
Blu nodded and smiled. “Thanks, Dez.”
An hour later, while waiting for Dez’s research to pan out, Blu had learned a few interesting bits from Ravin over shots of vodka.
Ravin had crossed Creed’s path in the sixteenth century. He had returned to France from a sort of crusade against werewolves who’d frenzied across Germany, killing mortals inflicted with a vampire bite. It had been a bizarre quest, Ravin remembered Creed telling her. He’d been dirty, bloodied and not at all genial to her.
He’d downed half a dozen ales with her before he realized she was a witch. Then, he’d hit her with some of his air magic, slamming her against the wall, and had strode out as if he were too good for her.
Didn’t sound like the Creed Blu now knew. He had changed over the years. It was all good now. Or as Creed would say,
très bien.
“I would like to have known him in an earlier time,” she said to the witch. “Perhaps in a wilder time. A freer time.”
“He would have slain you,” Ravin said bluntly. Then she studied Blu for a while, a smile creeping onto her lips. “Or maybe not.”
With a rallying whistle, Dez called everyone into the bedroom where a huge book was spread open on the bed. “I think I have an idea.”
C
REED BID
Dez
AND
Ivan goodbye, the last guests, and went in search of his shoes. He’d been conversing with the Council members in his bare feet. He’d had the hotel order clothing for them both, but the shoes had only been delivered an hour ago.
“Blu?”
She sat on the bench before the glossy, black grand piano. He hadn’t noticed her there, so quiet and small. Without a bright wig, she blended into the surroundings.
“I’m off to supervise the spell,” he told her. “They plan to begin at midnight.”
“That’s three hours from now.” She propped an elbow on the piano. “Do you think Dez’s idea will work? That the spell will end the fighting instantly?”
“Sounds like it might. It’s worth a shot, Blu.
I
don’t want this to go any further than it has.”
“Come sit by me.” She patted the bench.
He had things to do. There were nations to save. But Blu’s pale entreating eyes obliterated those nations with a flutter of lash. How could he possibly concern himself with all that when the only thing that mattered to him was right here?
He slid onto the bench and pulled her into a hug. “
Ma chère,
you feel so good. When this is over I’m going to hold you all day. All night. Weeks on end.”
“Hold me now. We’ve time before you need to go. Give me one hour?”
“Anything for you.” He dipped his head aside her neck and her hair swept over his face. “I love when you adorn me with your tresses.”
She giggled. “You say such romantic things, vampire.”
“I’m an old softy at heart, I guess.”
“Old, yes. Soft? You have your moments.” She slid her hand across his lap and he reacted to her touch. “But I wonder how hard I can make you?”
“Blu, now’s not the time.”
“Now is the only time, lover. I want to make love with you. Before the end comes.”
“It will not arrive.”
“You don’t know that.”
Her fierceness reminded him of the proud wolf who had
led him from the compound. And of the woman who had begged him to make things right. He hadn’t done that yet.
“What if you leave and never return?” she asked. “What if the spell doesn’t work?”
“Then I’ll not stop until it is right. I made a promise to you.”
“Give me what I wish this one time.”
He should not think of sex at a moment like this. But he could not deny that her strokes across his lap were getting a rise out of him. The woman was insatiable. And he adored her for that.
And what if…?
It could go badly for him this evening. He had no idea where the Northern pack was, if Blu’s father was plotting against Nava at this moment. Amandus could be looking for Creed. For Blu. There was so much to worry about.
It was now or possibly never.
“You want to stop the world and get off for an hour?” he wondered aloud.
“Yes, please.”
He lifted her into his arms and strode into the bedroom.
Her robe spilled from her shoulders and she sat naked and proud upon the bed, his princess of the daylight. She entreated him to enter her kingdom with a crook of her
finger. Creed shed his clothes and she stroked him hard. As he slid inside her, the world did slip away.
Only two. Entwined tightly. Breaths gasping and muscles tensing.
Skin brushed skin, gliding on the silk sheets, and shivering when bruised by the air.
Hair so black it was blue slithered across Creed’s arm and shoulder. He pushed his fingers through her dark veil and pressed his mouth, teeth bared, against her neck.
Together they climaxed. It was sweet, slow, yet intense. Blu’s body arched above his, giving of herself completely.
And when he thought she would slide from him and begin to dress, she straddled him and tucked her head beside his.
“I love you more than I’ve loved before,” she said. “This is the first time I’ve ever known romantic love. It is a true love that spreads from my heart through my bones. I didn’t think anything like this was possible, Creed. You fill every part of me.”
Every part of her body hugged his. Her breasts were heavy against his arm and chest, her leg draped across his hips, her mouth whispering against his neck.
This was his world. He would allow nothing to take her from it. Nothing.
“Lover?”
“Yes, Blu. My princess, my heart, my death and my life.”
“I want something from you. Something I want more than anything else in this world.”
“Ask,” he whispered, “and I’ll fight every pack on this planet to get it for you.”
“Fighting isn’t necessary. You just need to kiss me.”
“A kiss? Is that all my werewolf princess desires?” Dazzled by her sparkling gaze, he sighed.
Blu’s lips parted, her tongue teasing the bottoms of her upper teeth. “A kiss…and then…a bite.”
Creed’s heart thudded. Could she be asking…? Granting him permission to do the one thing he most desired?
“Bite me, lover. Make me yours completely.”
“Truly? It’s only because we’re so unsure of what will happen—”
She pressed two fingers over his mouth. “I’ve never been more sure in my life. I need to surrender to you. I want to wear your mark. It would be finer than anything I could buy with that pretty little credit card.”
“B-but the blood hunger?” They both knew werewolves did not take blood for survival. But once bitten by a vampire? That would change.
“If you can do it, I can.” She licked along his jaw. “Don’t deny me. You know you want to taste my blood.”
She made her tongue firm and teased the vein on his
neck. She knew what that did to him, how it made him ache. Creed’s teeth tingled, but they didn’t automatically descend now. Curious.
“Show me your teeth, lover,” she whispered.
“Blu, tell me you know what you’re saying.”
“You know I do.”
He rolled her onto her back and knelt over her. The penthouse looked over the city and it was dark twenty stories up in the sky. But Blu’s eyes glittered for him like two stars he could kiss and possess without fear of being burned. Her mouth pursed and she coyly tilted her head aside.
He stroked her neck, the vein warm and pulsing expectantly. Never had he been so desirous of the bite.
He would not question again. This gorgeous princess always knew what she wanted, and did not toy with her demands. If she wanted something, she took it. Or asked for it.
The world was falling apart, and the only thing he wanted was to gather her into his arms and sink his teeth into her flesh, and lose himself in the blood bond.
“I love you,” she whispered. “Bite me.”
His canines descended. Creed parted his lips to display them to his wife. She touched them, not showing the fear she’d once had for them. He didn’t require the stroking of his teeth to increase his arousal. The fact that she accepted him excited him like nothing he could ever imagine.
“I will wear your mark proudly,” she whispered.
Mon Dieu.
His teeth pierced her fine skin and glided into the vein. Blu’s body arched against him, her nipples skimming his chest. He stroked one, but his focus remained on the blood easing from his wife’s vein.
Wine and whisky and centuries of liquids drank and sloshed and spilled and devoured—nothing compared to this. To the hot elixir flooding his mouth and sweetening his tongue.
Fangs retracted, he sucked at her neck. Her hand slid across his back and fingernails drove softly into his skin. Heady, the drink. His, only his. His werewolf princess, the wild-haired sex-kitten who growled rather than purred.
Devour
was a poor word to explain how he sucked at her neck. He consumed her. Surrounded and dove deep and
became
her.
He slipped his other hand between her legs. She cried out as he found her clit and slicked across it masterfully. Her arms sliding across the wrinkled sheets, Blu tried to anchor herself to this world.
He wouldn’t allow it. They had gone beyond. Nothing held them down now. He could drink from her ever after and never satisfy his thirst and, yet, he drowned in the splendor of her life.
Blu cried out, a blissful and aggressive declaration of climax.
Creed took his mouth away, gasping for air but needing little. Red jewels spilled down her neck and glittered. He licked the blood trickles away.
Still she came, an amazing swoon that now captured him.
Better than orgasm, it was the wide and spacious world opening up to him. And he needed more.
Clasping her throat with one hand, he again drove his fangs into her vein below the previous bite. Blu convulsed in pleasure. He sucked a short drink, then dragged his fangs down her flesh.
The hot mound of her breast beckoned. So soft, aching for his intrusion.
“Yes,” she gasped. “Take me there. Please.”
Just above her nipple, he sank his teeth into the generous, firm flesh. He drank a little there. And below the other breast, on the underswell where it was so hot and smelled like the hotel’s tangerine soap. Mmm, blood oranges?
He could not determine where one climax ended and the other began. Together they built their own world, topped by a constellation of unending orgasm.
Gliding his palm down her stomach and following with his mouth, Creed sunk his teeth in the backside of
her hip, there, where her bottom gently curved. But when he tickled his tongue across her thigh, he avoided the artery. There was no danger this night, only pleasure.
Kissing her clit, he dashed his tongue to taste the sweetness of her climax. She was so wet and throbbing for him. There, he did not use his teeth; instead he impaled her with his tongue until she cried endlessly with pleasure.
Her fingers twined into his hair and she pulled him to her as she sat up and kissed him on the mouth, fangs still down. He pricked her lip and blood trickled across his tongue.
“You wear my mark now,” he murmured. “You’ve given me a gift, Blu.”
“That was incredible. I don’t know why I didn’t let you do that sooner.”
“You needed to trust.”
“And to love. I’m yours. Always yours,” she said. “No matter what.”
“In body and blood.”