Authors: A.C. Warneke
He cupped her cheek in his broad, warm palm and his thumb brushed her lower lip, “It means you have bonded me to you as I have bonded you to me.”
“But,” her eyes dipped to his fully erect penis and she swallowed back her groan of lust. “How?”
“I don’t know,” he answered softly, as bewildered as she was. “It happened when I marked you; I felt it in my soul… I felt you in my soul. I hadn’t even known about the mark until later.”
“Is it like marriage?” she asked, trying to understand the magnitude of what she was seeing.
He chuckled, “It is more binding and more permanent, I should think; it’s the literal joining of two souls. Can’t you feel it, my love?”
She closed her eyes and swallowed, afraid that she wouldn’t be able to feel anything. But then, there it was; a golden light that filled all of the empty spaces that were no longer empty and everything else and she wondered how she could have missed it. Slowly, she nodded, looking up at him, “I feel it.”
“Wherever you go, I will be with you,” he whispered, lowering her back onto the bed and following her down, covering her body with his. His stomach pressed against hers, his penis nudged her belly and she briefly wondered where her clothes had gone and why she hadn’t noticed she was naked and then she was lost in Feryn’s gaze. “I will keep you safe from harm, Malorie. Taella cannot hurt you again.”
Turning her head slightly, she pressed her nose against his neck and breathed in his heady scent; she loved how he smelled, so decadent and so Feryn. Her tongue flicked out and tasted the warm skin and she felt his body shudder. "She didn’t seem too upset about losing all of her vampires, Feryn; as soon as she realized I was marked, she adapted quickly, resigning herself to the loss with barely a second thought.”
His grip tightened on her waist as he turned his head and kissed her neck, sending shivers down her spine. But before he went any further, he pulled away from her and rested his forehead against hers, “She’s not a danger; her power source is gone.”
“She’s hiding som….” Her words were cut off when he placed his lips over hers and thrust his tongue into her mouth. She moaned as the intoxicating taste of Feryn filled her head and life violently returned to her body in brilliant force. Her back arched off the bed as Feryn thrust into her, filling her completely with one, masterful stroke.
“Oh, gods,” he groaned, pressing his face against her throat and wrapping his arms tightly around her body. “I thought I lost you.”
“Shh,” she soothed, moving her hands along his ribs, his back. His smooth skin burned beneath her fingers and suddenly she was as desperate as he was. She bent her knees and pressed her heals into the bed, tilting her pelvis just enough to take him deeper. Her arms tightened around his back, holding him closer as he ruthlessly plundered her body. The headboard slammed against the wall with each powerful stroke, echoing the pounding of her heart.
“I will slaughter anyone who tries to take you away from me,” he rumbled, raising his head and gazing fiercely down at her with his vibrant green eyes. Every word he said was punctuated with a lavish thrust, inflaming every nerve in her body and making her burn. “I love you, Malorie; more than anything.”
Her breath hitched in her throat and tears filled her eyes at the tenderness hidden within his savage expression. Sliding her hands up his smooth back, she clasped the back of his head and pulled him down until his lips met hers once more. The deliberate rhythm faltered and she lost herself in a gluttony of sensation as he lost control, his skin sliding over hers, his tongue moving in her mouth, his penis laying claim to her body.
His roar filled her mouth as a muffled scream escaped from her throat, his body tightening in orgasm as she burst into a million stars. After, he collapsed on the bed next to her, his chest bellowing in and out as he caught his breath. His fingers wrapped around hers and she smiled with contentment.
Everything was different now and when she was fully recovered she would tell Feryn about the woman who had changed it all. Curling up against his side, breathing in the musky aroma of their love making, she smiled. There was time enough for worrying about the future later because right now she was home and she was no longer alone.
She had Feryn.
Epilogue
Malorie walked through the green fields running her hand over the long grass, feeling it sway beneath her touch. Tilting her head back, she closed her eyes and let the sun kiss her face and smiled. The air smelled of fresh spring flowers and recent rain and there was a steady hum of insects and birds; it was perfect. And it wasn’t real.
She knew that it was a dream but she just wanted to spend a few minutes there, lost in the moment. When she woke up, she’d have to face a world that had changed so much in such a short time. As much as she loved Feryn, and she loved him immeasurably, her new circumstances were so extraordinary and all-consuming she barely had time to catch her breath. In the mere weeks since Feryn had saved her from… the vampires, her world had been flipped over and scrambled, no longer resembling the life she knew.
She was an upgraded Breeder (they were really going to have to figure out a new name for her species), she was consort to the Aradian king (why hadn’t she known he was the king?) and she was going to have to figure out what to do with all of the girls her father impregnated, the mothers of the new breed of Breeders. Not to mention spending time with Toby, preparing for a new baby, and the inordinate amount of time Feryn spent with her, making love with her…. It was exhausting but exhilarating.
Most of her dreams were no longer her own either as her brain tried to process hundreds or thousands of years' worth of memories, using her time when she slept to sort through the images. There was so much that she didn’t understand and would take years to learn; it was overwhelming and terrifying and thrilling. It made the simple dreams of sunshine in a meadow so much more soothing.
Taking as much of the clean air into her lungs as she could, she let it wash through her system and clear the cobwebs and potential disasters away. Letting her mind drift, she simply breathed.
The world shifted beneath her feet, forcing her to open her eyes and see the sun being blocked out as walls erupted around her. The greens and reds and yellows of the meadow faded away, replaced by damp stone; the warmth replaced by coolness. Fire light flickered, making macabre figures dance in the shadows upon the ancient stone archways. She was somewhere beneath the earth, but she did not recognize it from any of Feryn’s memories and definitely not from any of hers.
But there was something here, something….
Wrapping her arms around her body, she walked slowly forward, careful of where she stepped. The squeak of small rodents echoed in the cavernous rooms and the musty, dank smell of stagnant water writhed in her nose. The dark underworld was stealing into her, whispering its desire to have her stay and she wanted to return to the meadow, the sunshine. The cold was sinking deep into her bones, freezing her from within but she had to keep moving, to find….
“Hello?” she called out, her voice barely making a sound.
The catacombs seemed to go on for miles, but she knew she couldn’t have travelled far; not enough time had passed. But she was suddenly standing in the middle of a room that was more brightly lit than the others, with furs that hung from the walls and covered the floors. It was absurdly decadent and out of place.
“You’ve finally come,” a voice rasped. With a squeak, she spun around and saw a man with his arms pinned above him, suspended from the ceiling. His dark hair was long and tangled; similarly dark hair covered his face and hung limply to his bare chest. But his eyes were vividly green and so familiar.
She stepped closer to the agonizingly familiar stranger, narrowing her eyes as she studied him. He was naked and he didn’t have enough weight for his tall frame; it was apparent that he had been held captive for quite a while. His limbs were long and elegant, but the muscles had not been used for a long time and had withered away. Even wasted, he had a beautiful body; that of a starving artist, all lean sinew and grace. And he was meticulously clean which made the torn flesh even more abhorrent; open sores oozed and wept while old scars traversed his thin body.
His eyes….
“Remember me,” he wheezed in a voice that seemed rusty from screaming too much or not talking for too long. Or perhaps a bit of both.
With a sudden gasp, she realized who he was and rushed over to him to remove the bindings from his arms. Frantically, she worked the knots, ignoring the moisture that made her fingers slick. He hissed as she released him, his wrists bloody from the unforgiving rope. “Varick! My God; my God!”
He fell into her arms, a serene smile on his face as he looked up at her, “I need you to find me; you must find me.”
“Tell me where you are,” she begged, pushing the long, tangled hair from his too-thin face. His cheek bones stood out in sharp relief and he was so pale…. How had he survived?
He opened his mouth but quickly closed it, tilting his head to the side in concentration. His eyes widened in panic and he struggled to push himself out of her arms but he was too weak to move. “She’s coming; you must leave before she finds you here.”
“Tell me where you are.”
A terrible scream filled the caverns, echoing off the walls and amplifying the fury and the anguish. Varick rolled his head and looked at her with wild eyes, “You must go.”
A moment later, Taella stormed into the room, her eyes flashing with rage as she stalked over to Varick and kneeled down in front of him, unaware of anyone else’s presence. Malorie could only watch as the Aradian crouched over Varick, running her long, cool finger along his collar bone, his concave belly, “That bitch cost me everything, my pet. How was I to know that your bastard of a father had fallen in love with her? She was nothing, a mere human.”
Taella scowled at the word, her fingernail digging into Varick’s tender flesh and drawing blood. Malorie wanted to reach out and tear the cow’s eyes out of her face. Varick made a subtle motion with his head and she remained silent. It wasn’t as if she could actually do anything; she wasn’t really there.
“The bastard destroyed all of my vampires,” Taella said softly, the furious astonishment apparent in her voice.
“Even the ones I had kept hidden, the ones who never had a human. How….”
She shook her head, dismissing the thought before returning her focus to Varick. “It doesn’t matter, my pet; I still have you; I’ll always have you.”
“I was a fool to trust you,” Varick rasped, glaring at Taella as she straddled his emaciated body. Pain and disgust twisted his features as he struggled against her, too weak to have any affect.
Taella only laughed, undulating her body on him as she leaned forward, her fangs glistening in her blood red mouth. Malorie screamed, lurching forward to push the bitch off the poor man and found herself falling out of bed, landing painfully on the floor, the scream still coming from her throat.
“Malorie!” Feryn cried out, joining her on the floor, wrapping his arms around her. “Malorie, what happened? Are you all right?”
It took a moment to realize that she was back in her room, back in Feryn’s arms, but when she did, she turned to him and clutched his arm. Her heart was racing violently in her chest as she met the brilliant green eyes of her love, “It’s Varick; he’s still alive, Feryn. He’s still alive.”
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Also by A.C. Warneke:
Blight
Stone Love
Siren Song
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