Harlequin Nocturne September 2014 Bundle: Beyond the Moon\Immortal Obsession (49 page)

“Did they drink, in return?” St. John asked.

“Not as far as I know. They were glad to be found, and have been taken to the hospital. Their parents have been notified, but if they're...”

“Give them a transfusion right away. Invent an excuse for that. If they didn't drink, or receive blood in return, they will likely be all right.”

Loose screws...

Loose ends...

Madison's head hurt like a son of a gun.

She observed the scene in front of her, made up of St. John, in all his chiseled splendor, and Crane, looking mostly normal after his big, freaky surprise, and her brother, still there, whatever the hell Stewart had actually become...to find them all looking at her. Expecting her to what? Scream? Swoon?

“Yeah, right. Like that's going to happen,” she said to them. “And it isn't as if I'm going to be able to tell anyone. Who the hell would believe it?”

“What about the Hundred?” Crane said.

“You mean the Ninety-Nine? You know about them, too?” St. John asked.

“No Lycan worth his salt can't tell a vampire from a hole in the ground,” Crane said.

St. John grinned, looking very much like the St. John Madison was so uproariously in love with.

“I don't suppose they'll miss Monteforte,” he said. “I'm not sure they ever knew about you,” he added to Stewart. “Not for sure, anyway. I'm damned certain most of them didn't have any idea about what went on at the Germand. They can't afford to allow that kind of blasphemy against their rules.”

His smile widened, showing two gleaming white fangs. “You will need to stop staking everything that moves, of course.”

“Does the Hundred know about the detective here?” Madison threw Crane a look, still shaken up by that big, furry surprise.

Crane smiled back with a very wolfish expression that was in no way apologetic. “It's likely they do,” he said.

“It's tough to hide the smell of a werewolf,” St. John explained.

The detective grinned again. “That's what your look meant in the hospital hallway? You tagged me? Well, I wouldn't be so quick to call the kettle black, vampire. Most of you smell like burnt toast.”

“And you,” Madison whispered to Stewart. “What about you? Are you all right? Enough to come home?”

She directed a question to St. John. “Is that possible?”

He nodded. “Ocean liner. Darkened room. He can make it work if he wants to. He'll have to explain what the hell he is, and how that works, first.”

Stewart's slump, Madison knew, was caused by the extremes of a relief he had no doubt lost sight and hope of. Though infused with vampire blood, enough of her twin remained in the mix, thanks, she supposed, to his Slayer base.

She wanted to cry with happiness over that one small thing. Her brother hadn't been taken from her forever. Hope shone in his eyes.

Although there was stuff to be cleared up, the Yale Four girls were alive. St. John was here. Stewart was here.

She doubted this kind of mess would happen again anytime soon in London. As St. John had said, a fringe community like those old vampires couldn't afford the attention.

So, what about her?

Where did she fit in?

Her network would be waiting for an update as soon as the story of finding the girls broke. She was going to break it. In spite of standing there in the moonlight with a vampire-hunter hybrid, an immortal she loved more than anything else on the earth, and a werewolf cop—all of those things part of London's dirty little secrets—she still had a job to do.

In spite of everything.

And because of everything.

She still had the energy to do it. Help clean this up. Put a shiny new spin on the news.

There were vampires in London, the biggest story of all, the story of a lifetime, and she couldn't tell that story. Her life, and the lives of many others, depended on her silence.

The world depended on it.

“Shall I take you back to your hotel?” the werewolf detective asked her.

She couldn't have taken a first step, if she had accepted that offer. The almost heart-rending expression of sadness on St. John's face kept her rooted in place.

That sadness told her she had one more thing left to do. She had to make peace with her own immortal obsession.

When he held out a hand, as if he had heard her thoughts, her brother stepped forward.

“It's okay,” she said to Stewart. “He is the Protector, you know. My Protector. Can you go to my hotel, Stewart? Will you go, and wait for me there, please? I can't lose you again. We'll do everything possible to make you comfortable, I promise. The detective can let you in. Cops have ways to do that. This—” she gestured to St. John “—is important.”

Crane and Stewart eyed each other warily. They were different species who had come together tonight for a common goal, but they didn't have to like it.

This was important.

She placed her hand in St. John's, feeling the familiar charge that hadn't lessened one bit. She wondered if this would be their last night together, and if he would move on now that his task had been accomplished.

He was one of Seven Blood Knights who could rule the world if they wanted to.

“One more night is not enough,”
St. John sent to her.

When she met his eyes, she said, “Not a Slayer. Nothing resembling a Slayer. There was some mistake. I was scared to death out here.”

Before her next breath, and in a surge of motion that left her last remark trailing, they were running, together, toward shelter.

Chapter 26

S
t. John's bare body, perfectly proportioned and as powerful as poured steel, was a thing of beauty in whatever incarnation, and carved by a master artist's hand. A partly unsteady hand. Evidence of that artist's slip of the chisel showed in the long lines of ridged scar tissue that glowed whiter, grittier than the rest of his undisturbed flesh, and curved around the sides of his rib cage.

In what now seemed like ages ago, Madison had felt those ridges with her fingers and wondered who had dared to hurt him. She now knew that many of his enemies, mortals and vampires alike, would try to do the same if they understood what his presence among them meant. Christopher St. John was no friend to vampires or monstrosities of any kind, though he had been born one.

Supposedly, she was his enemy, though they didn't view things that way. Big lessons had been learned during these days and nights in London. Not everything that appeared as black and white had to be perceived as polar opposites, when a vast area of gray ran between. Although most people considered this gray area negatively, an awareness of how vast that area was had changed her.

Meeting Christopher St. John had changed her.

He'd been mortal once. His life had been taken from him, exchanged for another kind of existence. He lived in that gray zone as an elegant, honorable, noble immortal whose past remained a mystery and whose immediate future rose above her as she gazed up at him from the bed.

She also lived in that gray zone, because she loved St. John with every fiber of her being. Someone, somewhere, might damn her for this, she supposed, but Madison didn't care. She thanked the heavens that he so obviously felt the same way about her.

Many loose ends had been tied up at last in London, but this one dangling thread remained above some unanswered others.

Their future.

They were in his refuge. She didn't remember anything between being on the street and on her back, in his bed.

He was completely naked, pale, perfect and more beautiful than anything she had ever seen. It was the first time she had seen all of him.

Eyeing the fullness of his erection, her body reacted with a quiver of anticipation. The word
glorious
came to mind.

Would the sky fall in if two beings created to eradicate each other came together in this way, repeatedly?

She'd seen no evidence in herself of the traits her twin possessed, except for the dangerous attraction to vampires. Particularly her attraction to this one.

Just now, with her breath coming in great gasps, she wanted a physical culmination of their feelings.

Just this one last time. At least.

The scent of his bare skin filled her with heat as he came closer, as he leaned over to place his hands on the pillow behind her head. As she looked at him, taking in the exquisite length of his magnificent body, a beating, soulful longing made her heart soar.

This was the same longing she'd felt from the first sighting of him on that balcony, in the monsters' club, magnified a thousand times and manifesting here, inside her chest, and between her legs. If this was to be the last time, with him, she didn't know how she would cope.

“So much to do,” she said to him. “And you see only me.”

“You imagine I could see anything else?”

His expression was tender, sober, provocative. His eyes captured hers with a glint of blue-black fire.

“Do immortals remember what to do in times like this, after a fight?” she asked.

“Why don't you be the judge.”

The tickle of silky hair on her cheek made her reach for the wide shoulders she wanted crushed to hers. She sighed with pleasure when his long arms wrapped around her, lifting her from the mattress.

He sat down beside her, holding her inches away from him for an agonizing minute more.

“I don't think you do remember,” she said. “It's not supposed to take this long.”

“You're afraid you will change your mind?”

“Hell, no.”

His laughter mingled with the sound of fabric tearing. Madison felt a chill of cooler air, realizing without looking that she'd been rendered as naked as he was, and that she had been the one to forget the details, such as clothes getting in the way.

Even then, St. John didn't immediately release her. His lips stroked across hers, sending jolt after jolt of red-hot current through her, each strike turning up the heat and causing moisture to rush to the place she wanted him the most.

The hungry, completely savage meeting of their mouths came like rapture. The slick dance of their tongues sent her heartbeat into overdrive and her breasts straining upward, hard and aching for the attention of his heat, hoping for just one touch.

He laid her back without breaking the contact of that kiss. Her arms encircled his neck, muscles contracting to pull him to her until she felt the smooth seduction of his chest against hers at last.

Skin to skin...

She had imagined this would be a vigorous taking—his hardness, her need. But his kiss became deeper, slower, producing a similar effect to having his hands slide down her body, covering every inch.

She arched her back, ran her hands over his shoulders, mindful of the fiery tattoos that had glowed like a bonfire, feverishly tracing the grooves she found between his blades.

More sound came from her throat when she found those muscled shoulders rippling, and feverish.

Touching him there seemed to strip from him his ability to restrain himself. He murmured something incomprehensible as his body slid onto hers, stretching them both out on the sheets.

As he breathed her name into her mouth, his erection found the home that would welcome him. He wasn't one of the Seven here. He was Christopher St. John, lover, giver.

He eased only the swollen tip of his cock against her, holding back, seeming to need this kind of restraint.

Madison's body opened to him without effort or resistance. Her legs separated to grant him full access. She was damp, anxious and waiting, wanting to see where this meeting would take them, when she had to go home to Florida soon after.

When her moan of invitation reached him, St. John drew his hips back. Slowly, he sank his cock inside her, one glorious inch at a time.

It wasn't enough. Not by far.

Clutching at him, wanting to shout with the pleasure of the sensation of having him inside her, Madison spoke into his mouth. “Prove how much you want this. Prove it now.”

Her remark caused another motion of his hips. He pressed into her with a faster, livelier thrust that he followed with more, until he wrenched a series of cries from her lips, locked to his.

Each sound she made quickened his pace, and drove him deeper between her legs. Madison tried to hold off the pleasure by squeezing herself around him. She didn't want this to be quick, or over too soon. She didn't want it ever to be over.

Mindless of the old injuries he had sustained, she clawed at his back. Her need was endless. He seemed to be sharing every sensation, which was perhaps why he was in no hurry to reach the place inside her that wanted him so desperately.

When he backed off, she growled. When his fingers traced her collarbone, and dipped between her breasts, she uttered a breathy protest.

Nothing else mattered in that instant, not her straining breasts, or any other body part. She wanted this. She wanted him. Why wasn't he listening to her? How could he wait?

His fingertip was cool against the flush of her overheated skin as it circled the raised pink flesh of her breast. He gave her a devastating smile before lowering his mouth there.

With a slow lap, his tongue danced over her. In reaction, she clutched at his hair. The draw, as he suckled her, struck all the way to her bones, ending up in a deep place between her thighs, near where his cock waited to satisfy her.

Writhing on the mattress, she arched her back, liking what he was doing, lost in the sensation of his mouth on her.

He wasn't inside her now, but so damn close.

His hand glided over her stomach, and between her hip bones. At the same time, his talented tongue aided his next draw on the tip of her breast. Her insides began to ache. She felt each throb of her pulse, and couldn't tell which sensation mattered most: mouth, fingers, lips? She refused to give up or give in to the whole, not wanting to miss any part of this.

It was so very good.

It might be the last.

God, not the last!

His lips gave a last soft pull on her breast before his face came close to hers. His eyes sought hers with an intensity that drove her mad with desire for the promise she saw there.

“Don't even presume to read my mind,” she murmured.

His eyes were all black now. She heard the drop of his fangs.

It was as if their souls knew what came next.

His plunge struck hard, rocking the bed on its foundation, reaching her core. Her breath whooshed out. Emotion released, spiraling upward within her to meet with the largeness of her need, crashing into it, spilling the emptiness out, filling it with something altogether new.

The air on her face became a colorful burst of brilliant light. Electric blue. Pink. White. She became one with that light as it ripped through her, scattering her senses to pieces.

Her body rose upward in a violent jerk of intensity. The edge of her physical pleasure was joined by her mind, and soon after that, her soul. She and this special being were wrapped together, not just along some nebulous thread, but everywhere possible. In all ways possible.

One more slight move of his hips, and he had her completely. Swept along by the explosion that rocked her was the ultimate gratification of a need being beautifully fulfilled.

Her lover began to shine. His back began to burn white-hot, scorching her fingertips. Madison felt as if they were lifted from the bed, from the world, wrapped intimately together.

There was a sensation of wind, or maybe the air caused by the movement of wings, on her face. The place St. John took her to was brilliant, colorless, and yet filled with light.

Images filled her mind.

Knights riding on black horses. Black shields emblazoned with crests of fire. Stern, pale faces of men fighting, then gliding through gardens of grass, red roses, and gurgling, water-filled fountains. And in the center of that fountain sat a sparkling golden cup, its rim covered in blood.

Her cry of ecstasy went on and on, echoing in the room, mingling with the visions, as her orgasm merged with St. John's long, deep groan of satisfaction.

It felt like hours before the climax backed off, and faded. It felt like hours before she even began to come down to earth.

The room had gone quiet after their cries and shouts. In the new silence, neither of them moved...until that quiet was severed by the unmistakable crunch of splintering wood.

Madison opened her eyes to find herself not beneath St. John, but on top of her lover, straddling his naked body as she had done once before, but this time holding a narrow length of wood, its sharpest edge centered on St. John's chest, where his unearthly heart continued to thunder.

His hand surrounded hers, on that stake, the weapon she'd sworn never to possess, as if he'd stop her from using it. As if she might have used it.

Bewildered, dazed, Madison blinked and met his eyes.

“Instincts,” he said.

A slow grin lifted his face, a damnable expression she immediately adored, and a sign of his new ease with her.

The tips of his fangs gleamed from between the fullness of his lips. And though she wasn't so sure how she felt about the fangs, she loved those lips, loved the way shadows caressed his angular face.

In a Slayer, this would have been a problem. She didn't want anyone to remove St. John from the equation, from her future, by using such a weapon—especially herself, due to hidden instincts she refused to accept.

But she hadn't shown any tendency toward being a vampire hunter. So how had she ended up with a stake in her hand?

“We'll probably have to invest in a furniture store until you learn to control those instincts,” he said. “You just destroyed the bedpost.”

“I'm no Slayer,” Madison protested. But she had pointed a weapon at him before realizing she had moved, seconds after they had climaxed together.

“No Slayer,” she repeated.

His grin remained fixed. His eyes were softening, showing a hint of blue in the center. His tender expression registered empathy, because he also had become something other than mortal, once upon a time.

“You said that you can make monsters,” she said breathlessly. “Will you make me one?”

“Like me, you mean?” He removed the stake from her fingers.

“Can you do it? Make someone like you?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever?”

“It is forbidden.”

“Will you do it to me, anyway?”

“No, Madison.”

“Because I'm something else already?”

“Even if you hadn't held that stake in your hand, I'd refuse.”

“How else can we be together?”

St. John's smile wavered. Madison saw on his face dueling emotions of satisfaction and suffering that made her chest tighten.

“Are you saying you might learn to love me, Slayer, as the monster you may think me, or that you merely want a rematch?” he asked. “For old times' sake.”

In response, Madison again found the crude stake clutched in her fingers. Swore to God, she didn't remember moving. Finding the weapon a second time had been as automatic and mindless as the first time.

St. John, able to move much faster, didn't stop her when the point of the stake touched his skin. His expression didn't change from that gentle, sad, knowing smile.

“Do you want to bite me?” she asked him. “Not
will
you do it, but do you
want
to?”

“I want to,” he admitted.

“Will you always want to?”