You would have preferred destruction, my friend?
Zayan’s hand closed around his fist and yanked his arm down. Having thrown all his weight behind the swing, Bastien dropped to his knees. He sank in the muck.
To the hell of lying entombed like a true living corpse? Yes
. He slashed at Zayan’s wrists with his fangs.
A brilliant white flash exploded behind his back with the force of a cannonball. Zayan released his arm and he fell on all fours like a dog. And like a dog, he roared up, fangs bared and went for the throat.
The points ripped into the neck he’d once kissed. Before he could drink, before he could sink in deep, he sailed through the air and smacked the ground with a slash and a thud.
Zayan’s broad, powerful body landed over him in a crouch. Slammed down by his maker’s large hand, Bastien gulped for air. Zayan yanked a hank of his hair, forcing his head to the side.
Baring his throat.
Even knowing he was about to die, Bastien’s couldn’t stop his body from tightening with desire as Zayan’s body covered his. Zayan’s knee lifted and pressed against his balls. He tensed, waiting for his maker to drive his knee in, waiting for the pain.
Instead Zayan moved his knee teasingly, rocking it back and forth, and the threat stiffened Bastien’s cock even more. Having his balls shoved upward was as torturous as having weights suspended from them. How many times had he been forced to submit to that erotic punishment for Zayan?
A humiliation that made him eager to attach the same weights to a submissive jade’s erect nipples.
Hades, here he was, expecting to get both his balls crushed and his throat ripped out, and he couldn’t resist calling up memories of pleasurable mastery. Of the last mistress he’d kept before he’d been entombed and how she had enjoyed such torture. How fascinated he had been when he discovered she had pierced nether lips where he could hang weights or apply chains. He’d enjoyed shackling a woman’s pussy to her bedposts.
He glanced up to see Zayan grinning at him. His gaze locked with Zayan’s inscrutable black eyes.
His maker inclined his head.
I can see inside your thoughts, my friend. And indeed, I
remember the girl with the pierced labia
. Zayan’s right hand, fingers tipped with long, clawlike nails, scraped over his pecs. He felt his skin part, his blood well.
Interesting that you think about sex now.
How do you think I passed ten years of hell?
Blood Red by Sharon Page ©2006 Advance Reader Copy www.SharonPage.com 78
The two sharp tips of thumb and forefinger nails dug into his nipple.
I know how it was that
you spent those hours of awakened imprisonment. I know of what you dreamed when you slept.
Do you, you bastard?
I could not destroy you ten years ago.
Zayan plucked at Bastien’s erect nipple, twisting it with his fingers. Bastien dropped his head back, swallowing a moan. Balanced on long, lean legs, his maker reached down between their bodies. Bastien hated showing his arousal, but he couldn’t control the groan that slipped out as Zayan’s fingers wrapped around his naked cock.
Why didn’t you destroy my brother?
A protected one? I think not.
Fangs glinted, lips parted, and Zayan’s long, pointed tongue flicked out to lick along his neck.
Bastien closed his eyes at the familiar, sensual stroke. Warm and wet, the tip stroked his artery up to his ear. Lust scorched a path down to his heavy cock, jacking it up off his belly.
Zayan squeezed his knob hard and the knee shoved up, bunching his balls into a taut, smooth bulge.
He was about to die and what his goddamned body craved was a good hard fuck.
“Protected?” he rasped, as Zayan’s tight grip dragged at his foreskin. What the hell was he doing? Why did it damn well matter why Yannick was alive? And why he was, since he wasn’t going to be that way for long. But he had to know—what made Yannick protected? He hadn’t wanted his brother to be destroyed, but why, once again, was Yannick privileged when he was not?
Zayan rubbed his cock in a rhythm that sent the last of his blood draining from his brain.
His maker’s canines pressed against his neck, framing his pulsing artery.
Bastien knew what happened when a vampire drained the blood of another vampire.
Ecstasy for the one with the fangs in the flesh. Agonizing destruction for the one giving up the blood.
After a decade of hell, he was going to die a torturous death.
“Yannick!”
He grinned into Althea’s musky pussy as he rasped her hard clit with his tongue. Cradling her plump bottom, Yannick pinned her to the mattress with his mouth.
“But don’t you…” She moaned. “Don’t you want to…to make love to me?”
Yes, after you come for me. Once or twice.
“Twice!” Her hips arched up to his mouth. Her fingers raked through his hair. At her firm, massaging touch against his scalp, shivers raced down his spine.
Or more.
“I couldn’t have more!”
Are you giving me a challenge? To prove to you how many orgasms you can have?
“I’d be afraid to give you a challenge,” she whispered.
Simple words, but so intimate. Two nights together and they spoke as friends. Yannick had never felt so close to another woman. Yes, he’d bantered with other women, paid them compliments, flattered them, and made love to them. Learned their desires, their needs, the Blood Red by Sharon Page ©2006 Advance Reader Copy www.SharonPage.com 79
triggers to make them explode.
But he’d never felt this tug around his heart with any woman but Althea. Never felt his heart pound so hard while he made love. He’d never opened his heart to a woman.
He devoured Althea’s sweet pussy, not caring any more about technique. All he wanted was to taste her. Savor her. Bury his face into her soaking cunny until he couldn’t see, couldn’t think, couldn’t smell anything but her desire for him.
Against his cheeks, her inner thighs were hot silk. On a low, sensuous moan, she hooked her legs around his back.
Her heels rubbed hard into the base of his spine, slid down to caress his ass. His balls tightened at the pressure against his cheeks.
For an innocent, she was incredible. So innately sensual. Her hands and feet skimmed over his body, exploring, apparently enjoying. Throaty moans wrapped around him. Hers. And his.
He moaned into her cunny.
He had to make her come. If he didn’t, he was going to lose control.
“Yesss,” she hissed.
Yes, love. Come for me.
“A little harder. Just a little harder—”
He obeyed, but not enough, for she ground her hips into his face. Althea took control, clutched his head, and held him tight to her. He couldn’t breathe and didn’t care.
“Yes, yes, please.” She banged her head back against the mattress. Fierce and wild. For a moment he stopped. He’d never had a woman go so wild beneath him.
She pushed hard on his head. “Please.”
Yannick grinned and sucked hard on her clit. Delighted. Amazed. Now he saw the fierce vampire slayer inside the proper young lady.
She shoved her fist into her mouth. Her teeth sank into her knuckles.
Oh yes, angel. Let yourself burst.
She came. Lurched back and forth as the spasms took her. She sobbed and whimpered and the quiet sounds were more intense than a scream. She was pleading for mercy against the pleasure taking her. Pleading to heaven above.
He wasn’t going to last to make her come twice with his mouth.
He rose over Althea, marveling at her beauty. Long lashes curled against bright pink cheeks. Beads of sweat dazzled on porcelain skin. Ethereal delight played on her face.
Her pussy pulsed against his cock, the muscles trying to draw him in. He remembered Bastien’s mocking words from the dream:
you always did lose control first
. And when the tip of his cock parted her wet, slippery lips, he prayed the dream was no premonition, that he wouldn’t burst too soon.
Her hands gripped his hips. Pulled him down so he slid in an inch. “Please.”
Yannick took a ragged breath.
We have to take it slow, angel.
Sweat broke out on his brow as he slid deeper. Her passage spread for him, just enough to cling tight to him. To hold him snugly in scalding, creamy fire.
He rocked his hips, withdrawing back to her entrance, pushing forward in her steamy core.
Blood Red by Sharon Page ©2006 Advance Reader Copy www.SharonPage.com 80
She arched back.
Yes.
In the dreams, Bastien had gone for her throat. He couldn’t do that. Couldn’t forcefully turn her. But could he make her want to become a vampire? Capture her heart, make her desire him for eternity?
He could not give her eternity. But God, yes, he wanted to capture her heart. And his own pounded at the thought. Never had such a need taken him before sex. The curve of her throat was a mere inch from his fangs. All he had to do was bite—
Her trusting eyes gazed up at him. “I just feel like…like I want you deep inside. To fill me.
Now. I think…I’ve heard…it’s better if you just…um…plunge in.”
Plunge in? He couldn’t stop himself now—
Pain lanced through his body, so sudden and shocking that he cried out.
“Yannick?”
Althea’s eyes widened with fright, but he couldn’t answer her. Couldn’t speak. Burning pain hit him everywhere.
I’m going to die.
The thought wasn’t his.
“What’s wrong, Yannick? What happened?”
He heard her terror. Of course, she’d be scared and horrified. He’d been about to make love to her. Now he was fighting the pain racking him. Struggling not to cry out.
Take my blood then. Get it the hell over with.
A cold emptiness gripped Yannick’s heart. His back felt cold. Wet. As though he lay in a bath of ice water.
Before his eyes, Althea’s face blurred. He fought to see her, to focus on her wide eyes and her moving lips. From the corners of his eyes, a searing white light blossomed. No matter how hard he blinked or shook his head, the white patch grew, like spreading water. Until Althea disappeared. His eyes were wide open but he couldn’t see her anymore.
“Yannick! Please!”
He could hear her but as though she was far away. But he knew she was yelling at him, not caring if everyone else in the Inn knew he was in her bed.
All she worried about was him.
He was touching her, but the sensation of her warm skin against his fingertips faded.
Numbness slid upward from his fingers, leaving him disconnected. Lost.
Yannick? Yannick?
Not Althea’s soft, pretty voice. The desperate rasp in his head belonged to Bastien. He heard his twin’s thoughts. Tasted anger and fear, felt them run hot in his blood.
He knew what happened when a vampire drained the blood of another vampire.
Instinct sent him lurching back. Dimly he felt his pulsing cock leave Althea’s heat. Had he left the bed? Was he standing? Where was he?
“Althea?” Yannick couldn’t even hear his own voice. Could she?
Darkness. The night sky. The hiss of rain. Mud. The thick stink of mud surrounded him.
Rivulets of rain ran beneath his soaked and frozen body. Voices approaching. Somewhere the Blood Red by Sharon Page ©2006 Advance Reader Copy www.SharonPage.com 81
glimmer of lamplight, rising and falling with men’s steps. Boots slopping in mud. Weapons—
hefted as men marched.
He turned his head—or maybe Bastien turned his head. A girl sprawled by him, her skin stark white. A white bodice was pulled low over voluptuous breasts. Stained dark. Soaked with dried blood. Blood covered her neck and shoulders like a shawl. The eyes—open? Sightless?
Closed.
“Yannick?” Althea’s voice pleading. He reached out to her.
Hit a hard chest. Satin beneath his fingertips, smooth and shimmering. And blood-red.
Raven’s blood
.
The rage in London
. An accented voice. Deep and thoaty. Elegant.
Mocking.
With a sucking drain that left his head pounding, all his thought focused on his cock. On a hand stroking the shaft.
Althea? Hoping to rouse him by sexual pleasure?
A
large
hand. Big fingers. Sharp fingernails.
He opened his eyes wide, but all he could see was white and dark. Golden strands drifted across his eyes. He focused hard. Hair. Fair hair.
Not Althea’s. Nor his.
Bastien’s.
Bastien?
In his mind, Yannick shouted his brother’s name. Again and again.
He’d never connected with Bastien like this. They were twins, and had always possessed a special bond. Even before he became a vampire he could seem to speak to Bastien through their minds. But he’d never seen through his brother’s eyes before.
He moaned. No, Bastien moaned. A hoarse shudder of sensual need and anger at his weakness. Yannick felt a weight on top of him, felt breath puff over his neck. Starched collar points grazed his skin. Male scents surrounded him—the unique aroma of another man. Clean skin. Cedar imbued in the dress clothes. A trace of sweat. The tang of leaking fluid soaking into small clothes.
The coppery promise of fresh blood.
He had a man lying atop him. A man playing with his—no, Bastien’s—prick. Long black hair spilled over his cheeks and mouth as the man licked his neck.
Zayan.
In his guise as a man. The only clue he wasn’t human was the long fangs Yannick felt pressed against his neck.
He was trapped deep in Bastien’s mind. Joined with his twin, he felt his hand slide down, just the way Bastien’s was doing. As though, like Bastien, he had managed to reach between his body and Zayan’s and grip the vampire’s erection through perfectly tailored trousers.
Zayan’s guttural groan echoed in his mind.