The Warrior Vampire (17 page)

“Naya!”

Her step didn't even falter. She leapt from the pier onto the sand with a feline grace that entranced him.

“Damn it, Naya, stop!”

Ronan took off after her, careful to keep his speed to an inconspicuous pace. What he wanted to do was overtake her, tackle her to the sand, and kiss her until she quit being so damned stubborn and acknowledged that there was something between them. The female tied him into gods-damned knots. Up was down and left was right when she was near. She flipped him on his axis and Ronan couldn't even trust his own feelings, wanting to be as far from her as possible one moment and needing her like he needed blood in the next.

Fifty yards ahead, she darted between the pilings of another pier. If she thought to lose him in the shadows, she had another think coming. The predator in Ronan rose to the surface, the thrill of chasing his prey spurring him forward. Seconds later, he ducked under the pilings and, with the cover of full dark, was no longer concerned with keeping a low profile or a level head. He darted between the pilings, Naya's scent fresh in his nostrils. Her blood called to him; her soul reached out through time and space, connecting them. She could try to hide, but he would find her. He would always find her.

Any reasonable thoughts were banished from his mind by the instinct to hunt. To capture. To take what belonged to him. An unseen force knocked Ronan's feet out from under him and he slammed to the tide-hardened sand with a grunt as the breath was knocked from his chest.

He looked up to find Naya standing over him, her dark eyes flashing with indignant fire. Ronan struck out with his hand, catching her around the ankle. He took her down with a sweep of his arm, careful to cushion her landing with his own body. A low growl of outrage threatened to escape her throat and Ronan rolled her over in a flash, settling himself between her thighs. “What's the matter, Naya?” he ground out from between clenched teeth. “Are you worried that you might be seen with me?” Her lips parted as her eyes narrowed, but she made not a sound of denial. “That you might actually have to explain my presence to someone?” The hurt that constricted Ronan's chest now was the sting of his own rejection. “The female who called you, perhaps?”

Naya clamped her jaw down tight and her chest rose and fell in a rapid rhythm with her breath. She averted her gaze, looking anywhere but directly at him. Emotion shimmered in the dark depths, and the tether that bound their souls pulled taut.

“Answer me!”

“I'm not ashamed of you; I'm trying to protect you, you idiot!” Naya's head came up off the sand, close enough to Ronan's face that their noses nearly touched. “If Paul finds out about you, he'll kill you. You need to get the hell away from me, Ronan. They're out here. Looking for me!”

A bark of laughter escaped his lips. “Do you think I give a single shit about these males you work for or what they think?”

Her sadness weighed down the air, permeated his pores. “I don't work for them, Ronan,” she said with a sad laugh. “They're…” She took her trembling lip between her teeth as though fighting for composure. “The tribe, it's more than family. When the elders give a mandate, it's followed. Period. If they find out…”

“What?” he demanded.

“If they even suspect how I feel about you, they'll kill you. Hell, they might kill me as punishment for my not killing you myself.”

The Sortiari's slayers hadn't managed to do the deed. Ronan welcomed anyone else to try. His voice lowered to a murmur. “And how do you feel about me, Naya?”

They'd known each other for a little over a week. Mere days. Did that matter when compared to the complexity of the eternal soul? She met his gaze with a ferocity that set his blood on fire. How could Ronan ever think to keep himself from her? If she ever thought to leave his side, he'd hunt her to the ends of the earth.

“It's like finding peace after centuries of restlessness. I don't want to want you, Ronan. I can't afford to need you. Especially now—” She looked away as though she couldn't bear to make the admission.

He guided her face back to his. “What?”

Naya's brow furrowed and she released a heavy sigh. “Especially now that I'm about to belong to someone else.”

He didn't understand her world. Covens respected the mate bond. A tethering was instant. Absolute. Fighting that bond would be like denying themselves blood. It was as much a part of their nature as feeding.

“That can't happen, Naya. Not when you already belong to me as much as I belong to you.” Ronan wanted to laugh at his own foolishness. Covens as a whole might have respected a tethering, but there was a female who'd do her damnedest to see his severed.

Tears glistened in her eyes and the words slipped from her lips in a desperate whisper: “I don't want to
belong
to anyone. I don't want to feel this desperate need for you that never goes away.”

To Naya, the tether was nothing more than a collar around her neck. Something that made her subservient. Dependent. How could he possibly make her understand that their tether was so much more than slavery to desire?

“Naya, belonging is more than a simple statement of ownership.” Ronan had never been very articulate. He was a male of action, not words. When a problem needed fixing, he fixed it. But he had no fucking clue how to make any of this right. “If you'd let yourself truly feel what this is between us, you'd know that.”

*   *   *

Naya didn't want to feel. She didn't want her life—or any part of her—to change. And that's what scared her the most. Because from the moment he'd tackled her in that parking lot, Naya recognized that her life would never be the same.

The green of his eyes became rimmed with brilliant silver. So beautiful. His gaze held her rapt, the intensity of it sending a tremor through her body. “It's all too much. Too soon. And we have to stop pretending that the world is on pause around us.” Malicious magic ran rampant and the town was too small to keep the secret for long. Ronan's sister was still missing and he'd yet to recover his recent memories. “We're being reckless. Irresponsible.” And it had to stop now.

The sand gave way beneath her and the salt air filled her lungs as she tried to center her focus. An icy chill permeated the thin cotton fabric of her shirt, but above her the heat from Ronan's body left her skin flushed.

She wanted him so badly that she hurt. And right now all Naya wanted was for that soul-deep ache to go away.

“You might think it's all too much,” Ronan replied, his tone as dark and rich as cocoa. “But for me, it's not nearly enough.”

Proving once again that their bond was greater than both of them, Naya ignored common sense and let Ronan give her exactly what she needed. He lowered his mouth to hers, and instead of an urgent press of lips, his kiss was a slow, sensual tease. Soft. Gentle. But no less intense, as though he wanted nothing more than to linger in the moment and taste her.

His arms caged her in and Ronan's body remained still, cradled against hers in the sand. Darkness surrounded them, plunging Naya into a state of sensory deprivation where nothing existed but the sensation of his mouth caressing hers. His tongue flicked out at the seam of her lips and Naya opened up to him and the kiss deepened. An indulgent savoring of each other that she never wanted to end.

Magic pooled at the center of Naya's being and spread through her limbs in a pleasant tingle. The familiar giddy high settled in her brain and she twined her arms around his neck as she pulled herself up to mold her body against his. She rolled her hips, grinding against his erection. Ronan shifted, placing a staying hand on her hip that he eased back down to the sand. It was obvious who was in control here, and it wasn't her.

She broke their kiss, reaching up to scrape her nails over the stubble lining his jaw. “The way I want you right now … like I'll die if I can't have you … is that how it feels to need blood?”

The quiet of her mind was interrupted by song. A beautiful, trilling melody that filled her near to bursting. Silver flashed bright in his gaze and she nuzzled Ronan's throat, licking, kissing, nipping at the tender flesh. His scent swirled around her, warm and spicy-sweet.

“Yes.” Ronan's voice was strained and raw as though he barely held himself in check. “I want to
ravage
you. Glut myself on your blood. Drink from your vein while I fuck you, and doing so would only chip the surface of sating my desire for both your body and your blood.”

Naya had never felt anything so visceral with any other male. Urgency reared up within her, pulling her muscles taut and sending a rush of adrenaline through her bloodstream. A low growl of resignation vibrated in Ronan's chest and her pussy clenched as he thrust his hips, rocking her against the erection that strained against his fly.

“There's power in blood, Ronan.” His mouth latched onto her throat, fangs scraping the skin. Naya shuddered as his tongue flicked out, bathing her in heat. “Magic in sex. You've awakened something in me that I've never been able to channel before.” He went back on his knees and his palms traced a path down over her ribs to grip the hem of her shirt. Naya raised her arms above her head as he stripped the garment from her and tossed it somewhere behind him. The cool evening air kissed her bare flesh and her nipples hardened. “That power scares me. Because I want
more
.”

“Naya.” Her name was a prayer on his lips, spoken with the sanctity of a vow. “Your blood is
life
. It gives me breath. Makes my heart beat.” His mouth found a sensitive spot beneath her ear and her pulse jumped. “And your body…” He continued the exploration of her bare skin, making his way back up her torso. A quick jerk pulled one cup of her bra aside and he smothered her aching breast with his palm. “Your body is the altar at which I pray. There's no greater power than that.”

Gods, the way he spoke.

Ronan continued on his track, his mouth branding her flesh as it traveled down to her shoulder, over her collarbone, and lower between her breasts. Naya arched up to meet him, and when his mouth sealed over the pearled peak of her nipple a wave of pleasure crested over her. A soft rose glow infused the darkness that surrounded them and she bit back a whimper as his tongue swirled over her nipple, teasing it to an even stiffer point before he took it between his teeth.

Heat swamped her. Desire rose like a tide and crested within her. The rose glow of magic infused her skin and Naya was filled with a sense of power so heady, she felt as though she could take on the world, single-handedly. She shimmied her hands between their bodies and with shaking fingers unfastened her pants. It took only a moment to work them down over her hips before she abandoned the effort and went to work on Ronan's slacks.

Greedy for bare skin, she couldn't free him from his zipper fast enough. Ronan stilled, little bursts of breath feathering over her breast. Naya's hand plunged past the waistband of his underwear, her fingertips teasing the silky flesh of his engorged crown. Ronan sucked in a breath that was more reminiscent of pain than pleasure as he pulled away from her. In the soft glow of magic that encased them, Naya's gaze took in the crease that dug into his forehead above the bridge of his nose. His jaw squared and the sharp cut of his cheekbones made him look as though he'd been sculpted from marble. His nostrils flared as the breath sped in his chest.

She reached for him again, but Ronan seized her wrists. He eased her back onto the sand, his grip unyielding steel as he brought her arms high above her head. Naya struggled against his grip. Not because he was hurting her, but because she couldn't bear not to touch him.

“Don't move.” The dark tenor of his command stopped her in an instant. He pressed her wrists into the sand. “Let me touch you. Taste you. Let me pleasure you, Naya.”

Pleasure was a two-way street in her opinion. She didn't want to simply be on the receiving end. But Ronan's insistence stilled her. His grip relaxed and then released. For a long moment, he stared down at her. Naya's back arched toward him and he reached behind her to unhook her bra. He pulled it away and slid the straps up her arms, leaving the garment to rest where her fingers were laced together above her.

“So beautiful.” Ronan kissed a path from her wrist down her arm to the swell of one breast. Chills danced across Naya's skin. The thrill of him taking her under the pier where anyone could see them excited her almost as much as his mouth on her bare flesh. A trickle of anxiety raced through her at the realization that Paul, Joaquin, and a small army of shifters were out searching for them. If Paul found her here, writhing beneath Ronan's skilled fingers, they'd both be better off dead.

He swirled his tongue over her nipple, so warm and wet, before taking it in his mouth and sucking deeply. The tips of his fangs teased her sensitized flesh, banishing any worry that might have given her pause. She'd risk Paul's wrath for these moments with Ronan.

Gladly.

 

CHAPTER

15

When Naya's fingers glided over the head of his cock, his veins had raced with fire and his skin felt like rice paper held too close to a flame. Siobhan's blood troth claimed ownership over his body, and the moment another female had sought to claim him he'd paid the price for the bargain he'd made.

Gods, how he wanted his mate's hands on him.

Her touch was a glimpse of heaven from the pits of hell. A pleasure he'd considered dying for. But no matter how badly Ronan wanted to give himself to her, he vowed to bide his time. He'd free himself of Siobhan come hell or high water. And nothing would stand between him and his mate.

Her skin tasted like rain.

He took one breast in his opposite hand, plucking at the erect nipple while he teased the other with his mouth. Naya arched into his touch, quiet, desperate whimpers of sound escaping her lips. The soft glow of magic painted her skin blush pink with flecks of gold. Ronan held himself in check, aware of what their passion had built in her the last time they'd been together. He'd take his time, pace himself. Allow the power to build instead of burst upon her.