He rolled over, dragging her with him until she lay heavily over him, her thighs straddling his hips. He reached out to enclose her hips between his solid hands, and, with purposeful movement, slid her intimately up the length of his lethal arousal.
Legna reared up onto her heels, her head thrown back as she cried hoarsely to the heavens. He gritted his teeth as the burning center of her body called to him, promising a haven like nothing he had ever known.
“Say it, Legna,” he begged her, moving her hips again until he was poised so close to the entrance to her body that it would take only one movement to join them.
Suddenly her head came forward, her eyes flashing with fire and intent and the determination of all the decades of her life. Her hands shot to his shoulders, pinning him back onto the bed as she released a savage sound of intent. She locked herself right where she was, refusing to allow him to move her in any way. He felt her tilting her hips so slowly, using all of her strength to fight his staying grip.
“Legna!” he gasped, feeling himself pushing into her, losing his control and his reason as she forced dominance out of his hands. She leaned over, eye to eye with him as droplets of perspiration fell from her body to his. He felt himself being surrounded further and further, the pace excruciating, the hot silver fire in her eyes taking everything away from him.
And then with one last undulation of her body, she gave it all back. She took him into her silken sheath completely, gasping out a triumphant sound of pleasure as he filled her to her borders. She stretched to accommodate him, and it had to be the most incredible sensation of their mutual lives.
And then she closed her eyes, a tremor shivering up her curving spine as she touched her mouth to his, and finally said his name.
“Pentangelo.”
It was a powerful name, a name of protection and high expectations. Just as hers was. Indirianna meant
“Companion of the Heavens,” and Pentangelo meant
“Angel of Endless Time.” The power of the names was clear enough, if at the very least in how their meanings so perfectly suited the creatures they had become.
And as they made love for the first time with all the power and intensity of the proud species they came from, they became completely lost in each other. They tumbled across the bed again and again, first Gideon driving deeply into Legna, and then Legna coaxing her hot body against Gideon with breathless, sinuous friction. They became tangled in her hair, the tendrils trapping them together into one endless being just as their thoughts melded in the same way. Gideon was capable of manipulating Legna"s body into an aria of immeasurable pleasure, but Legna was capable of thrusting the sensations right back into him in the form of raw emotions.
“Legna!” he cried hoarsely, everything about him screaming into her that he was too lost to do anything but feel the amazing summit they had formed together.
Legna"s breath came in short, quick moans that began to rapidly turn into higher-pitched exclamations.
She was beneath her mate, feeling him as he thrust into her to depths that transcended the physical.
When Gideon climaxed, it was with a primal roar of ultimate masculine ecstasy. The final thrust of his body and the burning rush of his seed pouring into her sent Legna into a volcanic release. It rode out of her on the back of an exultant shout. She tightened around Gideon like a passionate vise, milking him with dynamic thoroughness, leaving the most powerful Demon in all of history without a single ounce of strength.
Gideon dropped onto his mate"s damp body with a final sound of contentment. He listened as they both gasped for breath, loving the sound of it for reasons he couldn"t even think of.
In fact, thought was beyond them both. Gideon gave a moment of concern to the weight of his body on hers, solving it by simply rolling them over so she was sprawled across him. After that, there was nothing but bliss and the mated pair that basked within it.
Love?
Yes.
Gideon chuckled.
Why did you say yes like that?
Oh, I thought you were asking me a question.
I see.
Then he truly did see what she meant, and his heart flipped over in his chest.
Darling?
Gideon smiled at the warmth the endearment flooded him with.
Yes
, Neliss?
Oh, nothing. Just fulfilling my end of the deal.
The deal?
Yes. You made me a deal.
You lost me,
he sighed.
Legna lifted her head, propped an elbow up against the pillow of his chest, and settled her chin in her palm so she could look down at him.
“You said that I would get something very special if I called you that.”
“Did I?” he asked, his eyes brightening with speculation as he thought back on it. “Actually, I think you have that confused with the deal about saying my name.”
“I like your name,” she said with a smile. “I always thought mine was awful snobbish. But yours has me beat hands down.”
“My name is one of the finest and oldest names in all of our history.”
“That"s only because you have lived to be such an old tosser.”
“Tosser?”
“British vernacular, luv.”
“What are you, my dialect coach all of a sudden?
Is this your idea of postcoital pillow talk?”
Legna giggled, apologizing with a clinging kiss on his lips. It clearly calmed him, making him smile in a very cat-versus-canary way.
“Is there something you would prefer I say?” she asked compliantly.
“That yes a few sentences back was great. Short, sweet, to the point.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
“Yes?” he asked, arching a brow.
“Oh, yes,” she assured him, her own brows doing a little lecherous dance.
“Mmm, yes,” he murmured as her mouth lowered to his.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Legna?
Yes?
Do not talk with your mouth full.
No?
No.
Isabella stirred in her sleep, her cheek and nose rubbing against the smooth, warm skin of her soon-tobe-husband"s neck where she had slept with her face pressed against it the entire day.
The rub of her lips sent stimulation winging down her mate"s spine, stirring him out of his rest as well. She lay at his back, the entire length of her petite body plastered to the back of his, including the leg insinuated between his thighs and the swell of her belly that was nestled into the lower curve of his spine.
Jacob reached for the hand that dangled against his chest, attached to the end of the arm that draped over his.
He drew her fingertips to his lips, letting her feel his kiss and his smile.
She smiled against the warmth of his neck in response.
Feeling better?
he asked, using their mental connection first because he had missed the feel of her in his mind. All he had been able to do was content himself with her dreams as she had slept and healed.
Much better. I missed you.
I missed you, too.
She pulled her hand free so she could touch him, her fingers drifting softly across his skin, drinking in the missed feel of him.
“Next week is Beltane,” she reminded him. “Do you suppose we will make it through the wedding this time?”
“Not if Gideon says you cannot get out of this bed,” he countered sternly.
“Absolutely not!” she burst out, making him wince and cover the ear she"d been too close to. She immediately regretted her thoughtlessness, making a sad sound before reaching to kiss the ear she had offended with quiet gentleness.
Jacob extricated himself from her hold enough to allow himself to turn and face her.
“Okay, explain what you meant,” he said gently.
“I refuse to wait another six months. We are getting married on Beltane, come hell or...
necromancers... or... the creature from the Black Lagoon.
There is no way Corrine is going to be allowed to get married without me getting married, too. I refuse to listen to her calling me the family hussy for the rest of the year.”
“What does it matter what she says?” Jacob sighed as he reached to touch the soft contours of her face.
“You and I are bonded in a way that transcends marriage already. Is that not what is important?”
“No. What"s important is the fact that I am going to murder the sister I love if she doesn"t quit. And she will not quit until I shut her up either with a marriage or a murder weapon. Understand?”
Clearly, by his expression, Jacob did not understand.
“Thank Destiny all I have is a brother,” he said dryly. “I have been inundated with people tied into knots over one sister or another for the past weeks.”
“You mean Legna. Listen, it"s not her fault if everyone has their shorts in a twist because of who her Imprinted mate is! Frankly, I think she and Gideon make a fabulous couple. Granted, a little too gorgeously „King and Queen of the Prom" perfect for human eyes to bear looking at for long, but fabulous just the same.”
Jacob blinked in confusion as he tried to decipher his fiancée"s statements. Even after all these months, she still came out with unique phraseologies that totally escaped his more classic comprehension of the English language. But he had gotten used to just shrugging his confusion off, blaming it on the fact that English wasn"t his first, second, or third language, so it was to be expected.
“Anyway,” she went on, “Noah and Hannah need to chill. You saw Legna when she came to visit yesterday. If a woman could glow, she was as good as radioactive.” She smiled sweetly at him. “That means,”
she explained, “that she looks as brilliantly happy as you make me feel.”
“I see,” he chuckled. “Thank you for the translation.”
He reached his arms around her, drawing her body up to his as close as he could considering the small matter of a fetal obstacle. He kissed her inviting mouth until she was breathless and glowing herself.
“I thought I would be kind to you,” she explained with a laugh against his mouth.
“You, my love, are all heart.”
“And you are all pervert. Jacob!” She laughed as she swatted one of his hands away from intimate places, only to be shanghaied by another. “What would Gideon say?”
“He better not say anything, because if he did that would mean he was in here while you are naked. And that, little flower, would probably cost him his vocal chords in any event.”
“Oh. Well... when you put it that way... ”
Isabella stopped speaking so suddenly that it got Jacob"s instant attention. She blinked once, her gaze going suddenly blank and her body going rubbery in alltoo-familiar ways. Jacob instantly dismissed his playful mood, rising up on his knees as he waited for Bella to come back around.
It didn"t last long, and she sat up with a hand on her belly the very instant her vision cleared.
“Get dressed,” she told him, moving to get out of bed herself.
“What is it?” He reached out, circling her arm with a strong hand and forcing her to remain in bed where she belonged. He moved around to sit beside her and see into her eyes. “What did you see?”
As much as he was privy to all of her thoughts, the only thing he could not touch were her premonitions.
That place in her mind was blank to him, at the most giving off residual sensation of emotion. Right now, he could feel her confusion, and an underlying sensation of anxiety that accompanied it.
“I don"t know. I... ” She shook her head numbly.
She was nowhere near mastering this power. She could barely handle the energy drain that had begun to come with it. Interpretation was completely ambiguous, and at other moments like this, absolutely cryptic. “I saw red.
Nothing but this color of red. It seemed magnified, you know, like those pictures people take of ordinary objects and you have to try and guess what they are, but it"s hard to because they are so distorted?”
“I think I understand. So why do you feel you have to get up?”
“I... don"t know. Jacob, I just do. Please, I won"t understand this if you don"t let me follow my instincts.”
“No, little flower. Gideon said you are not to move from this bed, and you are not going to disobey.”
“Jacob,” she snapped, losing her temper. “I have a bad feeling about this. I won"t sit here and be coddled while something terribly important... or terribly dangerous might occur. What if this is a warning? I have a responsibility—”
“To what?” Jacob asked sharply. “To run around blindly like a chicken with its head cut off trying to find something
red?
Can you not see how ridiculous that is?
As well as dangerous for you and our child?”
Bella wrapped angry arms across her chest, her fingers grasping hard at her upper arms in frustration.
“I hate this! Six months ago I was the strongest I have ever been in my entire life. Stronger even than the most powerful Transformed Demon. Now I can"t even get out of this bed when I need to! All in a matter of a few days!”
“Stop this. You were attacked. You are not responsible for that.”
“No? And I suppose you were? If you can give yourself the guilts, Jacob, then I sure as hell have just as much of a right—”
She ended the argumentative statement with a gasp. Her head was thrown back violently, her body locking and seizing with brutality. Jacob barely managed to catch her up against himself before she slid from the bed and struck the floor. Instead, he was able to lower her with a modicum of gentleness to the carpeting.
“Bella?!”
He shouted at her as the glassy expression overtook her once more, but this was like nothing they had experienced together before. She was wracked in violent spasms of her body that could only be called a seizure.
Jacob grabbed for pillows, protecting her as best he could, thinking at a frantic speed about how to get help. He closed his eyes and reached out into the night, soaring out into nature and the things within it that he could manipulate. He touched the mind of a wolf. The Earth Demon charmed the animal, coaxing it to go against its natural instinct to stay away from man-made habitation.