New Blood (44 page)

“I think I know what's happening,” Amanusa said, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed.

Jax sat on the chair, where it was safe. Somewhat. “Go on.”

“I think, because I've tasted your blood, it has given you back some of the things Yvaine took when she bound you. It's given you the ability to choose.”

He shook his head. “I could choose before.”

“Not very much. You couldn't choose to leave me, to go somewhere else. You couldn't choose to—to spend.” She turned an adorable pink. He hoped she never stopped blushing when she talked about sex.

“But now—” She snapped her fingers at him. “Jax, are you listening to me?”

“Yes.” He dragged his attention away from her blush, away from remembering just where it began.

She gave him a skeptical look, then dragged the coverlet up to wrap around her. He hoped it would work, but he didn't think so. She could be covered up
so that only her face, only the tip of her nose showed—covered so that nothing showed—and the sound of her voice would arouse him.

“This afternoon,” she said, “when we were building that warding wall, and I reached for the sex magic we called, it seemed as if you had to—to open yourself and let me gather it. And last night, when you wanted me to give you the blood magic from the fight, I couldn't get in. I couldn't get inside you until I told you to take the magic. And you said yes, and that's when I could give it to you.

“I think, when I tasted your blood, you gained the ability to lock me out. I think it made us more truly partners, in every way, because now we have to work together to accomplish what we have to. You have to be willing every time.”

Jax stared at her, unable to wrap his mind around the concept. “But—we're still bound? Sorceress and servant?”

“Sorceress and familiar. And I think we're bound closer than before. You're bound to me, but I'm now bound to you in return. The power isn't all on one side anymore.”

“That
bitch.
” Jax threw himself from his chair and stalked to the window to stare out at the night, hands clenching into fists over and over again as he fought down his rage.

“She's dead.” Amanusa spoke from close behind him, letting him know she was there before she laid a hand on his shoulder. She treated him like an angry man who needed soothing to be safe.

He liked it. He would never, in another three hundred years, do anything to harm this sorceress—his
sorceress—but he liked, after so long, being treated like a man. Someone with the right to be angry. Someone with the power to act on that anger.

“She's dead,” Amanusa said again, “and I'm glad she is, because if she wasn't, you wouldn't be mine. But I wish, just for an instant, she wasn't. So I could kill her.”

Jax spun around and hauled Amanusa into his arms, needing to hold her, to know she was real, and here. And his.

He held her tight. Too tight, likely, but she didn't object, so he didn't let go. The anger seeped away with the ticking of the mantel clock. He took a deep breath. “It required my time with Yvaine to make me worthy of Amanusa. You wouldn't have wanted the man I was.”

“I want the man you are now. I need you.”

For the magic
. He heard the words, even if she didn't say them. She couldn't need him for anything else. Not the way he needed her. Not like his next breath.

But it was all right. She'd married him. She'd given him back his manhood, made him into a man rather than a thing. She'd bound them closer than ever. He wouldn't lose her with his neediness.

“Take the magic.” He loosened his grip and lifted his head to see her strong, beautiful face. “Build your shields.”

This time, he somehow sensed Amanusa
reaching
toward him, and just as she arrived, he thought
yes,
and the channels inside him, the ones where the magic hid, opened up and began to flow. He could feel it pouring out of him into her, a fiery cascade that felt as good as it hurt.

She gasped when the magic hit her, turning it into the whispered spell, building armor plating around them both, solid, protective, light as air.

“Jax?” Her voice quavered.

“What is it, love?”

“Was there supposed to be so much?”

“I don't know.” He shook his head, wishing he did know. “I've never been much good at reading magic, even after I was bound. Head-blind, remember? Why?”

“It feels like more.” She tilted her head and her fingers twitched, as if feeling something. “Or maybe it's simply that it's stronger. A difference in quality, rather than quantity. It's definitely different.”

“How can you tell? We've only raised sex magic by kissing before.” He wanted to believe in a difference, but feared to.

“Still the same magic.” Amanusa gave him a teasing look. “Who's the sorceress, and who's head-blind?”

He laughed, joy bubbling up from the blood they shared. He was himself again, or more himself than he had been in a long time. He could say yes, or no, and mean it. He could choose.

“Amanusa—” Did he dare ask?

“Mmm?” She seemed to still be playing with the magic.

“Do you think I really can keep you out? If you want in?”

She looked up at him, eyes sharp. “Try it.”

“Are you sure? I don't—” He sensed her
reaching
again, angry this time, predatory. So much like Yvaine that he braced for the pain, jaw tight and hard, while his mind cried,
No!

And nothing happened. He was alone inside his head, inside his body. He felt cold. There was no warm presence snuggled in beside him. His vague awareness of magic was utterly gone, and he missed it. “Amanusa?”

“You did it.” She smiled at him. “You've shut me out.”

“I don't like it.”

Her smile wobbled. “I don't either. I can't feel you.” Her hand closed into a fist, touched her heart. “Here. I can't feel you here, inside me.”

Jax's hands tightened on the arms of the chair to keep from lunging across the room at her. He wanted to be inside her, in every way possible.

Yes,
he thought, and the warmth seeped back in. He could sense the magic in the air and inside himself. One more answer and he would be done with asking for tonight at least. “When you reached for the magic that time, it felt like Yvaine.”

“I meant to. I tried to think like her, that I was entitled to the magic and you were only a tool, a thing.” She bit her lip. “I didn't like it.”

“Because that's not who you are.”

“I could be. The power is tempting. That's why I didn't like it, because the magic doesn't care. It just wants to be used. Maybe Yvaine didn't start out the way she was. Maybe the magic made her like that. I wanted to be sure—I wanted you to be sure that if I ever become like Yvaine, like Szabo—so devoted to a cause or an ideal that I don't care who I hurt—I wanted to know that you could stop me. Keep me away from the magic.”

He was out of the chair and moving toward her
while she still talked. “You could never be like Yvaine.”

“I could.” She wouldn't look at him.

Jax crawled onto the bed and pushed her flat onto her back as he moved up over her. “Never. Not even before you tasted my blood. Your past wouldn't let you become what you hate. But if my blood in you does what you say, I'll be better able to watch over you, to help you. Give you what you need.”

He let his weight settle over her. Her eyes went frantic, began to dart this way and that, as if hunting escape. “Look at me, Amanusa,” he said then. “Look at
me
.”

He waited until she looked, until she began to relax beneath him. It thrilled him that she would react that way to him, to his face. He lifted just enough to drag the coverlet down and untie her dressing gown again. She hadn't put her nightdress back on, and a tremor shook his whole body when he realized it. Thank God he hadn't known before.

In a near frenzy, he rose to his knees and wrestled his way out of his dressing gown and drawers. Laughing, Amanusa sat up and shed her ruffles. She laughed. Who would ever have thought it? Jax couldn't laugh. Not yet. Not when he still hadn't found his way inside her.

He fell to hands and knees over her, able at last to indulge himself with the sight of her glorious nakedness—her high, proud breasts, the endless stretch of sleek legs, the flare of her hips, the little mound of her stomach. “You are so beautiful.”

“You are the first to ever say so.” She held her
arms out to him, smiling. “The first to make me believe it.”

His arms shook with the effort of holding himself up. He was afraid to take her offer, afraid of forgetting himself in her embrace. “I want you so much, I'm afraid of hurting you, or frightening you.”

“You won't. You can't.” She ran her hands up his arms to his shoulders. “Jax, you gave me what I needed. You showed me there was beauty and pleasure and joy in making love. Let me give you what you need. Let this be your turn. Come and take what you want.”

It couldn't be that simple. Could it? She tugged at his shoulders and his elbows collapsed. Somehow he kept his weight from crashing into her, but though he fell slowly, he still fell, and her body cushioned his fall.

Take what you want,
she said. He scarcely knew what that was, it had been so long since he'd been able to have it. He wanted . . . wanted just to take her, like those bastards in the mountains, to plunge inside her and hammer at her until—

“Do it, Jax.” Her fingers roamed into his hair, playing in the too-long waves. “Whatever you want, do it. Take it. It's not like in the camp. It can't be. You're my husband. I chose you. We've shared blood. You can't hurt me because you would feel it.”

It sounded logical, but he wanted it so much, he couldn't help looking for the viper in the nest. Something had to be wrong with it.

“Jax.”
Amanusa squeezed her hand between their bodies and touched his cock where it pressed into the softness of her stomach. He caught his breath. She
wrapped her hand around his rigid flesh and he groaned, his hips twitching. She squirmed, trying to maneuver her body, to bring him where he wanted so badly to go.

“Do you mean it?” The words grated out of him, his voice gone harsh.

“Whatever you want, Jax. You did as much for me. Please. Let me do this for you.”

He pulled back to search her face, not quite yet able to believe. He pushed himself into her hand and she didn't retreat, didn't look away. Her eyes returned his hungry stare with a wild hunger of their own. Still watching her face, Jax tugged her hand away and took hold himself. He probed her folds, sucking in a quick gasp when he found her as slick and wet as before.

He would take what he wanted, but he would make it good for her too, because that was part of what he wanted. He wanted to feel her come apart in his arms, screaming his name. He rubbed his tip over her sweet spot until she moaned, until he couldn't bear any more and brought himself to her entrance.

He stopped then, poised just outside. “Look at me, Amanusa. See me.”

He wanted her eyes on him not only because he didn't want her frightened, but because he wanted her focused on him and nothing else. Her eyes fluttered open, and when he knew his image registered in her mind, he thrust home. The wet, slick heat of her body enfolding him almost brought him to climax right then. He laced his fingers through hers, pressing them hard into the mattress, and held on,
his cheek against hers as he fought for control. He wanted more from this. More for himself and much more for her.

“It was easier,” he rasped, “when I wasn't the one in control.”

“But it's better now?” Amanusa sounded uncertain.

Jax lifted his head to see her. “Oh yes. Much better. More difficult, but better.” He withdrew almost all the way and drove back home again, sliding his hands down to her hips to lift them so he could rub across that place inside her, the one that had taken him so long to learn.

Amanusa gasped. Jax grinned, a fierce, predatory grin. He was going to make her scream.

He didn't hold back. When he tried, Amanusa clawed at him, drove her hips up into him. So he let go that much control and pounded into her. He could feel her reactions, know how
that
thrilled her, and
this
thrilled her more, and he gave himself over to it. The sensations built higher and tighter until he cried out with every thrust, every breath. Wild, barbaric sounds that harmonized with Amanusa's moans and whimpers.

Her body went taut, paralyzed with pleasure, and he shouted, giving one more hard, perfect stroke, so that they exploded together, throbbing and pulsing around and into each other, captured by the perfection of the moment. A moment that lasted forever and not nearly long enough.

“Oh my.” Amanusa combed Jax's hair out of her face.

Jax turned his head to press a kiss on her temple. It
was nice that she was tall. “Is that a good or a bad ‘oh my'?”

She poked his arm with a forefinger. “You felt everything I felt. What do you think?”

“You know men and our frail self-esteem. I want to hear it in words.” He lifted his weight off her, but couldn't bring himself to leave her altogether. He nuzzled along her cheek, unable to stop kissing her.

Amanusa nuzzled back. “If I tell you that I want you to take whatever you want any time you want, will that satisfy your need for words?”

He chuckled, content. “I am going to be so bloated with magic, you'll have to give spells away for free to keep me from waddling with it.”

She pulled back abruptly, worry in her eyes. “Will too much magic hurt you?”

Jax gave her a hearty kiss and slid to one side, propping himself on an elbow. Her worry warmed him. “I haven't carried huge loads of magic very often. Yvaine almost never f—” He edited his language. “Never had sex with me herself, which raised the most magic. She sent me to parties—orgies—”