Everafter Series 2 - Nevermore (2 page)

I raised my head to the sight of Amiri draped over the steering wheel, blood streaming from a furrow across the width of his shoulders. “Alexa.” I forced myself to wrench my attention away from the tantalizing red ribbons that were pooling on the vinyl seat below Amiri. “Are you—”

“Just bruises.” Her voice was terse and low, her gaze focused on a point outside the Jeep. The collision had thrown the leopard at least fifteen feet, but even as I watched, it rolled over fluidly onto its huge paws. “The gun, Val. Quick.”

I reached for the long box beneath my seat. Before we had set out from the lodge, Amiri had stowed a rifle inside. But he had locked it, and my strength, though superior to a human’s, was not sufficient to free the bolt. I dropped the box back to the floor and returned my focus to Amiri. “The key. It’s in his—”

Alexa’s touch on my arm was fleeting. “No time.” I followed her line of sight and tensed as I saw the feline, crouched menacingly, its tail lashing. It was going to spring.

“Take care of him.” Alexa vaulted out of the Jeep before I could protest, and as her feet touched the ground, she called out a word I’d never heard before. “Uje!”

Her body collapsed in on itself. There were no seizures, no bitten-off cries of agony as the transformation took her. She flowed effortlessly into her panther self, leaping forward to intercept the pounce of the leopard. Snarling and spitting, they rolled along the forest floor, claws sparkling in the dying light that filtered through the trees.

I forced myself to look away from the battle, knowing Alexa could handle herself. I gripped Amiri beneath his arms and dragged him into the backseat. When I felt for his pulse—thready, but present—my fingers came away bloody. The thirst broadsided me, and I clenched a trembling fist. No. I would not tear into him, finishing the work that another predator had started. I would not. I would resist, and honor the Hippocratic Oath I had yet to officially swear.
Do no harm
.

Breathing through my mouth helped a little, and I managed to blink the haze from my eyes. Carefully, I rolled Amiri over enough so that I could inspect his chest. When I raised his shirt, I was unsurprised at the mass of bruises, a perfect circle matching the circumference of the steering wheel. That complicated things. He probably had severe internal bleeding. There was nothing I could do about that out here.

I pressed him against the seat, hoping the pressure would curb the flow of blood from his shoulders. I rummaged first through one pocket and then the other, until I found the keys to the box. It contained some first-aid supplies, too, but the rifle was my priority.

It fit snugly into the curve of my arm and shoulder, and I raised it with confidence. Index finger on the trigger, I sighted down the long barrel, waiting for the perfect moment. Alexa’s black fur mingled with the leopard’s dappled coat as they writhed, snapping at each other’s necks with their curved, deadly teeth…but in the next instant, Alexa had managed to put a few inches of space between them with one powerful shove of her hind legs.

I pulled the trigger and fired into the leopard’s shoulder. It grunted, staggering at the impact, and Alexa seized the opportunity I’d given her. She sank her powerful jaws into the leopard’s neck and shook her sleek head once, twice, three times. The leopard’s spinal cord snapped with an audible pop. Immediately, she tore into the meat of its flank, driven by the desperate hunger that always accompanied the change.

I turned back toward Amiri, tossed the gun onto the floor of the Jeep, and rummaged through the other contents of the box. The only useful supply was a handful of gauze pads, which I unwrapped and applied to his back. As his blood soaked through them, my brain raced, suggesting and discarding possibilities. He needed medical attention, posthaste. Driving back now would mean leaving Alexa behind. But I’d have to do that anyway—her clothes had been ruined during her transformation.

Decided, I vaulted into the driver’s seat. The call of Amiri’s freshly shed blood was even stronger here, and I gripped the steering wheel hard.
Alexa.
I had to focus on her. To tell her what I was going to do.

“Alexa,” I called softly, not wanting to startle the panther into an instinctive reaction. She raised her head from her feast, and I couldn’t suppress a shiver at the sight of her gore-stained muzzle. Her ears were flat against her head, and her breaths came out in low, snarling rasps. For the first time, I noticed that she was favoring her left hind leg, and my heart clenched at her obvious pain. Thankfully, the injury would heal when she changed back.

“Amiri is in bad shape,” I said. “I’m going to drive him back to the lodge. Meet me after dark, near the pool.”

She stared at me for a long moment, and I wondered what she was feeling behind those beautiful, alien eyes. Did the panther experience Alexa’s mental presence as an interloper? Or had the past few months of study in Telassar enabled them to build on the tenuous common ground they’d discovered during our pursuit of the rogue vampire?

But now was not the time for speculation. Silently praying to whatever deity ruled the Serengeti, I twisted the key in the ignition. The engine coughed a few times in protest before catching, but when I shifted into reverse, the Jeep cooperated, and I swung back onto the road.

The movement blasted me with the alluring scent of Amiri’s blood, a delicious wave that momentarily swamped my best intentions and left me wanting to take his life instead of save it. I clenched my teeth against the persistent burn in my throat, letting the ache in my jaw ground me against temptation. And then I pressed the gas pedal to the floor and left the forest behind.

*

The panther prowled out of the darkness, a living shadow, green eyes reflecting the light of unfamiliar constellations. I held out the robe in my hand as an offering. Her stretch was a sinuous motion that only continued, elongating and blurring until she stood before me in her human form. Naked.

I held open the robe and wrapped both it and my arms around her when she walked forward. She leaned against me and I breathed in, filling my lungs with her distinctive fragrance, at once comforting and exciting.

“How is Amiri?” she said.

“The staff took him to the nearest hospital right away. I don’t think we’ll know anything until tomorrow.” I spun her to face me, then bent to brush a kiss across her lips. I meant for the gesture to be loving and reassuring. Tender. But she must have sensed the sharp need at the very core of me. She leaned in before I could pull away and slid her tongue deep into my mouth. Instantly the fire leapt up, crackling between us.

“Inside,” I gasped when I felt her fingertips dip beneath the waist of my cargo shorts. When she responded by flattening her palm against my skin, I laughed breathlessly and somehow managed to pull back. “Not like that. Not just yet. Room. Now.”

As we stumbled through the nearest door and down a dimly lit hallway, I tried not to think about the fact that after tonight, we had only one more full day together before I returned to New York. I didn’t want our union to be marked by that kind of desperate urgency. I wanted to take her body because it was the best way to communicate my emotion—not because I was in a race against time to fill myself up with her before the distance could once again intervene. Sliding one arm around her waist, I put everything else out of my mind but the heat of her flushed skin against mine.

When we were finally behind the closed door, she pushed me up against it. One hand tangled in my hair, forcing my head back while her teeth and lips grazed my neck. The other divested me of my shorts, then cupped between my thighs.

“I love you, Valentine,” she whispered against my skin in response to my wordless groan. “I love you. I love you.”

She released her grip on my hair to cup first one breast, then the other, even as she began to stroke me languidly. My hips thrust into her touch, needing more. She laughed softly, teasing me, reminding me who was in charge.

“I’m going to taste you, Val. I’m going to drink you in, make you come in my mouth…and then?” She paused to mark the skin of my neck with a long, pulling kiss. “I want to come with your teeth in me.”

I breathed a plea without conscious thought. Her hand never left my breasts as she sank gracefully to her knees, as she twisted two fingers deep inside me, as the heat of her mouth enveloped me and every nerve became a storm of sensation. The room cartwheeled across my field of vision. Alexa’s name burst from my throat.

Over the pounding of my heart, I heard my own harsh gasps and the soft sounds of her lips kissing my thighs. For a moment, I felt deliciously emptied by the passion that had wrung me out so thoroughly, but then thirst rushed in to fill the vacuum, tinting the world red.

Alexa rose to her feet. My tongue curled around one of my sharp canines—an involuntary response. Her glistening lips curved seductively in a slow smile that bespoke her desire. But her eyes—those beautiful emerald eyes that she shared with her panther—were soft and loving. In one smooth motion, she undid the knot of her robe and let it fall to the floor. I reached out one finger, tracing it along her jaw and down, down over the ridge of her collarbone.

“Yours,” Alexa said, her voice trembling on the simple syllable.

“Mine.” I closed the gap between us and kissed her hungrily, urging her toward the bed. When she stretched out on it, I followed her down, entranced by the way her tan skin stood out against the white coverlet. I ended up with my lips pressed to her neck and one hand curled around her breast. The urge to sink my teeth was overwhelming, but I fought it, gentling my lips against her skin and rubbing her nipple between two fingers. My jaw ached with the effort of holding back.

“Val,” she whispered, hips undulating against mine. “Oh, God.”

I shifted my hand to her waist and pressed down, holding her in place. “No,” I said, rising to meet her gaze. She looked as hungry as I felt. “Slowly. Be patient.”

Her answer was inarticulate, half frustration and half anticipation. I took my time, caressing the taut muscles of her stomach before stroking along her thighs, forcing us both to wait. When I finally touched her, I felt every muscle tense.

“Please—”

The entreaty inflamed me. I dipped my head and took her into my mouth, thrilling to her low cry. It was all I could do to keep from pressing my fingers all the way inside and claiming her. Instead, I went as slowly as I could, fluttering my tongue against her as I slid deeper, one fraction of an inch at a time.

She was incoherent below me, above me, and when her body clutched at me, she cried out. I yielded then, shifting my mouth to her thigh and sinking my teeth, prolonging her climax and assuaging my thirst. Her blood was richer than the finest brandy—bold yet gentle, subtly complex. The essence of Alexa. My love.

I felt her fingers in my hair, pulling me up. But when I obliged, she guided me not to her mouth, but to her neck. “More,” she said, fitting one muscular leg between mine. “Take more.”

My own cry was muffled against her skin as I obeyed. Her intoxicating flavor burst again under my tongue, and she arched beneath me, shivering in pleasure. We slid down the wave of passion together, moving in tandem, urging one another up the other side until we found the glorious crest together.

For a long time afterward, I held Alexa as she dozed, savoring the sensation of her heart beating under my palm and the sound of her deep, even breaths. Fatigue tugged at me, but I didn’t want to lose awareness. Our time was running short.

After a while, her eyes opened. She leaned in to kiss me before pulling back, blinking sleepily. “Mmm. How long was I out?”

“About an hour.” I rolled onto my back, carrying her with me. She smiled at the change of position, settling the slight curve of her belly into the dip of my rib cage and kissing my chin.

“That was incredible,” she sighed. “We are so good together.”

“And a formidable team,” I said, thinking back to our encounter with the leopard.

She raised one eyebrow. “We do seem to have a routine, don’t we? I do the wrestling, you do the shooting.”

“It works.” I trailed my hands down the back of her neck to massage her shoulders. “What was that all about, anyway? The leopard, attacking Amiri out of the blue.”

“I don’t think it was after Amiri. I think it was after me.”

I stilled my hands. “You?”

“It probably perceived me as a threat to his territory.”

“Even though you weren’t in panther form?”

Alexa kissed my chin again, trying to soothe me. “I’ll ask Constantine about it,” she said, wriggling against me—a cue that I should continue my massage.

“What was that word that you said?” I asked after a few minutes. “Just before you changed.” I tried to remember what the two syllables had sounded like. “Oo-dyay.”

A deep shudder racked Alexa’s frame and she rolled away, turning her back to me. Her body trembled violently, as though she’d just been outside in the bitter cold. Startled, I touched the shoulder I’d just been rubbing. “Baby?”

“Just…a minute,” she said, her voice strained. “I’m sorry—just…”

I lay as still as I could, trying to stave off my own apprehension. For a second there, she had sounded as I remembered from the early days of her infection with the Were virus—tense, distracted, and struggling to maintain control.

Finally, she turned back to me and buried her face in my neck. When she spoke, her voice was thick with regret. “I’m sorry, love. Clearly, I still have lots of work ahead of me.”

“What happened?” I asked, running my hand down along her side and back again in what I hoped was a soothing motion.

She took a long breath. “That word is a…a trigger. It’s an imperative, in Swahili. My way of calling the panther.”

I thought about that for a minute. “Well, it seems very effective. I’ve never seen you transform that quickly and with no struggle.”

Alexa’s laugh was shaky. “That’s the goal, certainly—it’s a significant step on the road to fully integrating my two halves. According to Constantine, anyway. But I think…” She pulled back to look at me, and her eyes were troubled. “Apparently I’m a little too trigger-happy. When you said it, just then, the panther almost got away from me. I am so sorry.”