CONCEPTION (The Others) (25 page)

“Night.” His fingertips brushed her cheek on their way down.
He surrounded her. Mentally, physically, and emotionally. She should feel
threatened, but right now she just felt amazingly safe.

Deuce touched his nose to hers. “You will always be safe
with me.” He pushed back, much of his usual grace lacking. “What is the
question you wish to ask me, Eden?”

“How do you know I want to ask you a question?”

“I can feel the need and anxiety within you.”

“Am I…different?” Images of every horror movie she’d ever
seen flashed through her mind. Deuce shook his head.

“You are tired and your body heals from the trauma of
conversion, but you are as you always were.”

She must have been projecting again. “Except for the fact
I’m your mate now.”

“Yes.” He managed to pack a wealth of satisfaction into that
one syllable.

“Which means?”

“I supply your every need.”

Eden laid out her biggest fear. “Am I going to want to gnaw
on strange guys’ necks?”

No smile accompanied his “No”.

She hazarded a guess. “Just yours?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

His hair slid forward on the affirmative, stroking across
her nipples with a silken glide. The sick traitorous puppies they had to be to
think about pleasure when she knew she felt like shit, immediately perked up,
sending messages of delight to her core. Eden brushed those tantalizing strands
of hair to the side.

“Why am I never dressed around you?”

Deuce shrugged, his dark eyes painting the half-peaked buds
with the caress of anticipation. “You are beautiful, and it pleases me to look
upon you.”

A woman had no defense against a look that hot. Eden reached
for the comforter with some half-baked idea of using it as a shield. “You said
I was too skinny.”

“I said I did not like that you had lost weight.” His
fingers left her cheek, trailed down her throat, rode the rise of her
collarbone before angling down to cup her breast. Her breath caught, her ribs
expanded, pressing her breast harder into his hand. Her womb clenched in anticipation
as his thumb hovered over a straining peak. “I would like to see our children
at your breast.”

Eden blinked. That was not what she’d thought he was going
to say.

His thumb tapped the tender peak, centering her attention on
his touch. His hand shifted. His fingers flattened against the sides of her
swollen breast. He slowly brought them up, compressing the flesh, milking
delight from her before engulfing the hard tip in the heat of his mouth. He
drew slowly on her nipple, holding her gaze, suckling strongly.

I would taste your milk.

Oh God! She wanted him to. She wanted to give to him in
every way she could. She arched into his mouth, moaning as she reminded him, “I
don’t have any milk.”

He dragged his teeth along her nipple as he withdrew, taking
her shudder against him, pressing her nipple deep into her breast with his
tongue, drawing out the pleasure.
Next time.

Next time?

She blinked. She hadn’t finished with this time yet. She
moved his hair off her aching breasts as he propped himself above her. “How is
Jalina?”

“She thrives.”

Thank God. She owed him so much. “Thank you for taking care
of her.”

“She is my daughter. Thanks are not necessary.”

“I want to see her.”

“Marlika will bring her in after you feed.”

They needed to get something straight between them. “I don’t
feed, I eat, and I have other needs to see to first.” Her bladder was
uncomfortably full.

His hand slid over her stomach to cup her lower abdomen.
“You need to urinate.”

The blush started at her toes. She shoved his hand away.
“For God’s sake, you don’t just say those things!”

His right eyebrow arched, and despite the embarrassment
eating her alive, she couldn’t help but admire his aplomb. “You do not have
to?”

“Whether I do or not is immaterial. It’s private and
not
a subject for conversation.”

She could tell from his expression that he wasn’t taking her
seriously.

“You are embarrassed by your bodily functions?”

“I’m embarrassed by your insistence in talking about them.”

“It is my duty to see to all your needs.”

“Trust me, there are some things a woman has to do herself.”

“Like vomiting?”

Eden pushed Deuce back and slid out from beneath him.
“Exactly.”

The room spun as she sat up. Instantly, he was beside her,
his arm around her waist, drawing her into the shelter of his body, lending her
his strength. “The urinating you can do yourself. The getting there I will help
you with.”

She rolled her eyes, pretending she wasn’t burning up with
embarrassment from the inside out. “You just don’t get it, do you?”

“No. But you have forever to teach it to me.”

Now there was an intimidating thought. He opened the
bathroom door for her and gave every appearance of planning on escorting her
right up to the toilet. That was so not happening. She braced herself against
the door. “I can take it from here.”

“You are weak.”

She was, but she was a long way from dead. And that’s what
she’d have to be to want a too masculine, too sexy for his own good
man—Chosen—put her on the toilet like a toddler. She stepped through the door
and started to close it. “Not that weak.”

The door stopped when it ran into the barrier of his hand.
“It pleases me that you think of me as sexy.”

She rolled her eyes. As if the man needed his ego stroked.
“Stay out of my head.”

She shoved it the rest of the way closed. He really was too
much. She braced herself on the vanity as she inched her way across the floor,
the hoop swaying with every step reminding her of Deuce’s will. She couldn’t
ever remember feeling this weak. She sat down on the toilet with a weary sigh.
Thank goodness the bathroom wasn’t one of those big fancy modern affairs with
more floor than utility, or she would never have made it.

Two minutes later, she realized getting down was definitely
easier than getting up. Getting up took everything she had and left her shaky. She
leaned on the vanity while she caught her breath. Sitting in front of her was
her toothbrush, reminding her that her mouth tasted like the inside of a shoe.
She reached for the brush and glanced in the mirror. Her scream almost
shattered the glass. The door slammed open and then Deuce’s reflection was
behind hers, looking impossibly big from this perspective.

She put her hands over her face, as if covering it hid the
reality. “Don’t look!”

Deuce’s arms came around her again, one settling across her
abdomen, pulling her back into his chest while supporting her weight. The other
tucked across her shoulders. “You screamed because of your face?”

“Of course I screamed. Anyone would.” She was hideous, her
eyes beyond bloodshot and swollen with blue-black bruising all around. The same
for her nose and mouth. She peeked through her fingers. The flash of red that
was her eyeballs was enough to have her snapping them closed again. She
shuddered in horror. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

He had not warned her because the most beautiful thing he’d
ever seen was her opening her eyes. “The bruising is temporary. I will heal it
after I feed.”

“I’m not going to be stuck like this?”

“No.”

One hand twisted to cover her eyes, the other flicked at his
reflection. “Go. Feed. Quickly.”

The laughter caught him by surprise. Despite his exhaustion,
despite the tearing burden of her pain and his own, she had managed to amuse
him. “First, we will see to your comfort.”

“
We
are not doing anything.”

“You are too weak to support yourself.”

“Call me shallow, but no one is seeing me like this.”

She could not be shallow if she took classes. “I have
already seen you.” His logic did not appear to soothe her.

“Then I hope you looked your fill.”

He tapped her fingers in a silent request to drop her hands.
“Think you a bruise or two would matter to your mate?”

She pushed his hand away. “This is a hell of a lot more than
a bruise.”

“I do
not like your swearing.” He turned her around. Edie did not make it easy and
she did not uncover her face, just dug those pointy elbows into his abdomen and
was as uncooperative as she could possibly be. He was hampered by his need to
support her. He would levitate her but that would take more mental strength
than he could spare. But he would, however, spare the energy to take away the
worst of what caused her horror.

He finally had her turned and anchored with his palm at the
middle of her back. He arched her backward, smiling when she caught her hand on
the vanity behind her, leaving her mouth vulnerable. As if he would let her
fall. He brushed his lips over hers, using the connection to accelerate the
draining of the blood and fluid, repairing the damage, his lips lingering on
hers after the job was done. He did the same with the rest of her face.

She held absolutely still while he did so. Only the steadily
increasing scent of her arousal and the little pulsing breaths meeting his
indicated her emotions. Of his, there was no doubt. He stepped back, letting
gravity drag his cock down before closing the gap between them, his cock
nestling between her legs, snuggling against the center of the joining ring,
touching the hot crevice beneath. There was nothing little about her gasp this
time.

Her “There is something seriously wrong with you” was as
disgruntled as her woman’s flesh was wet.

He touched her lip with his tongue, testing her flavor. Such
an intriguing mass of contradictions. Sweet and hot. Shy and bold. Sass and
compassion. “I am your mate. Always will you be attractive to me.”

She peeked at him from under the edge of her hand. “As much
as I realize you think that’s comforting, getting a hard-on for what I saw in
the mirror—that’s just…sick.”

Deuce shook his head at her silliness. His hair fell over
his shoulder, blocking his view of her breasts. He flipped it back impatiently,
losing his balance as he did so, bumping her against the sink.

“Deuce?” All play left her voice.

He straightened, blinking back the dizziness. “I’m sorry.”
He eased Edie up, centering himself. “I should not have healed you just yet.”

She touched her lips, frowned and slid her arm around his
waist. It was only when she stepped to his side that he realized she had the
absurd notion of supporting him. He caught her hand and brought it to his lips.
“I am fine, mate.”

“You almost passed out.” He could feel the fear beating at
her with that realization. She tugged him toward the door. “You need to lie
down.”

He went because even though she could not feel the pain her
actions were costing her, he could. And one of them needed to be lying down for
him to manage it. Another wave of dizziness hit him halfway across the room. He
stumbled. Edie twisted around in an effort to support him, tripped and fell. He
yanked her back against him and spun so he took the brunt of the fall. Her knee
dug into his groin, jarring a moan past his control. Eden leapt to her feet,
using his groin as a springboard, forcing out another moan, and backing away
from him as soon as she hit her feet.

“Oh my God! This is it. This is absolutely it.”

She rushed to the door, without explaining what “it” was,
and yanked it open before he could remind her of her nudity. Dak stood on the
other side. The only thing that kept Deuce from marking him for death was that,
after that first glance, his eyes never left Edie’s face as she grabbed his
arm, her worry coming in a breathless, urgent rush.

“Oh God, you have to help him.” She was yanking on Dak’s
arm, dragging him into the room as she spoke. “He almost passed out.”

Deuce was going to have a serious talk with her about
exposing herself to other men. He didn’t like the way her breasts bobbed with
every jerk on Dak’s arm, or the view the other man had of her ass as she came
to kneel beside him.

Dak intercepted his glare, smiled, and grabbed the comforter
off the bed and wrapped it around Eden on his way over. “Deuce?”

“I am fine.”

Edie was shaking her head before he finished, her wildly
bouncing curls drawing the werelion’s eye. “He’s not.”

“If you ask me neither one of you looks like you should be
out of bed.”

Deuce wrapped the throw more carefully around Eden as she
knelt beside him, her hands touching his face and shoulders as if she didn’t
know what to do, but was determined to do something.

“He needs Bohdan,” Eden said, placing her hand on his
forehead, holding it for a second while the sheer novelty of having someone
fuss over him kept him sitting where he was while her soft hands stroked his
shoulder in agitated little pets that had the Pride leader giving off waves of
envy. Deuce caught Eden’s arm and pulled her down to his side. Dak had been
getting restless lately, showing all the signs of mating hunger. He did not
want to lose a friend to a moment of frenzy.

“I am fine.”

Edie shot him a look of pure disgust. “You need Bohdan.”

“No.” Bohdan was not recovered. He was still deep within the
earth. Deuce could feel his life force in its muted, almost disconnected state.
He lived, but it would take days for him to recover enough to see if there was
permanent damage.

Dak knelt down, his rifle thumping the floor with a muted
clank. Deuce could feel his impatience with Eden’s drama. Dak did not think
Eden was worth risking two leaders of the alliance and had spoken against the
healing, though when he addressed Edie, his tone was totally neutral. “Bohdan
is not available.”

“He left?” Eden asked, shock freezing her in place.

Dak shook his head. “He is not well either.” His amber eyes
missed nothing as he looked at Deuce. “You need to feed.”