She swayed, but Rune caught her. Teresa blinked and looked up at him. “What was
that
?”
“The Mating brand,” he told her, satisfaction shining in his eyes. “At
last.
”
Chapter 28
“B
rand?”
“A tattoo, brought on by the Mating, imposing itself on both of us.” He lifted one hand and rested the tips of his fingers on her left nipple.
Teresa sucked in a gulp of air. His touch felt so much warmer than the bolt of heat even now searing her skin.
“It will begin here,” he told her, caressing a spot directly above her nipple. “Its echo will brand itself into my body as well.” He smiled. “Ah, and there it is.”
“What? Where?” She looked down and saw a faint red mark above the areola around her left nipple. Her stomach pitched. It had begun. It was real. The biggest decision of her life had been made and as her stomach settled down, she realized she was grateful. It was done. She’d made her choice and now she was on the road she had been preparing to walk her entire life.
Lifting her gaze to his broad bare chest, she reached out to smooth her fingers across the matching red mark on his skin. He hissed in a breath at her touch and she smiled, enjoying the knowledge that Rune was as susceptible to her as she was to him.
“What will it look like when it’s finished?”
He pulled her closer to him and it was her turn to gasp as the hard thickness of his desire brushed her core. He felt her reaction to him and smiled. “Each witch’s tattoo is different. As individual as each of you are. Drawn from your karma, your heart and soul, so the tattoo will speak to your inner strengths.”
He was still talking but she wasn’t listening. God help her, she couldn’t think. Not with his heavy, hard erection pressed so closely to her aching center.
“The vow we took is just the first part of the ritual,” he told her, bending his head low enough to whisper into her ear. She shivered as his breath brushed her skin. “To complete the first step, I must bury my body inside yours and stroke you until you shatter in my arms.”
So not a problem.
Teresa was on the cusp of shattering just standing here next to him.
Swallowing hard, she met his gaze. “Then we should finish it, right?”
He swept one hand down the length of her, following the curve of her figure. He traced the narrow dip of her waist and the full roundness of her hip and then slid around toward the front of her body.
Teresa held her breath as his big hand splayed across her abdomen and slowly, slowly, drifted lower. Breathing in short, sharp gasps, she gritted her teeth and moaned a need she barely recognized. She had never in her life been so amazingly taut with sexual tension. Even the first time with Rune couldn’t have prepared her for this. This monumental, overpowering
need
that slammed within her at every beat of her heart.
When he moved his hand lower, she jolted and parted her thighs to give him easier access. She clung to him, with her free hand since he still had a tight grip on her left. Rocking into his touch, demanding more, needing
more.
Each caress of her damp, heated skin was as much a brand as the fiery tattoo that had burned her body. Again and again, he stroked her, rubbing his thumb across that single bead of pleasure until she was whimpering in his arms. He dipped one finger and then two, deep within her while still using his thumb to tantalize and tease.
He touched her and she burned; he stopped touching her and she ached. The coiled tension ratcheted up inside her and Teresa threw herself into the chase. She pushed herself harder and harder, straining to reach what he promised her. Hungering for the first hard slap of release that would shake her to her toes. It was almost there. She felt it. So close. So … close …
He tore his hand from her body and Teresa cried out in mindless hunger, “No, don’t stop!”
“I haven’t even begun,” he promised, his voice a low rumble that seemed to wrap itself around her and shut out all other sensations. Letting go of her hand, he drove her backward a couple of steps until her spine was pressed against the warm rock wall of the cave. Then he dropped to his knees in front of her, pushed her thighs apart and covered her core with his mouth. Teresa gasped one long, shuddering breath and felt everything around her dissolve.
She clenched her fingers in his hair and held his head to her. She parted her legs farther, loving what he was doing to her, needing it more than she had ever needed anything in her life before. Sensations coursed and pooled inside her until she was nothing more than a jangled mass of live nerves. She looked down at him and watched as his clever tongue stroked and tasted her. She saw his lips move on her as he suckled at the very heart of her and she felt the shuddering tension spiral and coil inside her. She had a wild thought of keeping him trapped here, just like this, forever. She wanted this never to stop—even knowing that release would be staggering, she wanted this moment to go on and on.
But the spiraling tension reached a breaking point. Her breathing was hardly more than a whispered plea. Steam settled on her skin. Crystals shone down around her in a kaleidoscope of color. Her vision blurred as her body spun suddenly and completely out of control.
“Rune!” Her shriek resounded over and over again in the cave before losing itself in the rush of hot water pouring into the tub. In the steamy mist that coated their skin. In the glow of the crystals that seemed to shine as a blessing on their mating.
Her body jolted, and she held his head to her, needing the continuing lick of his tongue as her hips rocked and she pulsed with a sweeping roll of orgasms that chased one another through her body.
Breathless, staggered, she held him, watched him through passion-glazed eyes. His name was a whispered cry on her lips, murmured over and over again as if it were a prayer. And he heard her, gifting her with a new barrage of pleasure before the first had even died away. It went on and on until she was mindless, nothing more than sensation with a beating heart.
Just as she thought she’d reached her peak, had come as hard and long as she was capable, he showed her there was more. His hungry, delicious mouth took her again, pushing her higher, faster than before, until his mouth and tongue were as much pain as pleasure and still she wanted more of him.
She stared up at the shining crystals above her head and watched as they seemed to spin wildly along with her body and mind. He continued to taste her, his hot breath on her most sensitive flesh, his tongue tracing strokes of pleasure that rippled on and on and on until Teresa couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t a part of this man. This moment. It was all so much more than she had ever expected or ever known.
When he finally pulled away from her, she wanted to weep for the loss of him, but she didn’t get the chance. He picked her up, then gently set her down in the rushing water of the hot spring–fed tub.
The heat pushed through her, at once both relaxing and stimulating every one of her nerve endings. She didn’t know what was to come next, but she was eager to find out.
“That was …”
“Only the beginning,” he told her and settled himself in the tub as well.
His big, hard body took up a lot of room, but he reached for her and pulled her onto his lap, and Teresa fitted herself to his body like the missing lock to his key.
The first sweet slide of his body entering hers took her breath away. He was so big, so thick, he pressed on every sensitive nerve she possessed. Her body was still in the final throes of climax when he entered her and set everything afire all over again.
She swiveled her hips, grinding their bodies together. She arched her back, pushing her breasts forward, and Rune took her left nipple into his mouth. Again his talented lips, tongue and teeth worked her flesh with tender, thorough care. He nibbled at the spot where their mating brand had begun and Teresa felt the heat of that tattoo burn into her skin again. She felt the mating brand growing, spreading, claiming her body for Rune.
She looked down at his chest and saw another streak of red beginning to blossom on his skin, in answer to the new flash of tattoo on her body. She touched his as he had touched hers, claiming him, accepting him—accepting that they were truly meant to be together.
For now.
Chapter 29
T
housands of miles away, Kellyn felt the rise of power shake the boundaries of the universe and she knew the witch Teresa and her Eternal had begun to mate.
Fingers closing around her crystal wineglass, she threw it across the room and watched it shatter against the far wall. The explosion of glass did little to calm her. Nothing much could. Still, her gaze locked on the red wine splattered like blood as its tendrils trailed down the cream-colored wall. That sight did cheer her slightly, but it didn’t last.
Inside her, she felt a flicker of something like … hope. A foreign sensation fought to rise up within her and Kellyn deliberately pushed it back into the darkness. “I’ve lost another witch,” she muttered grimly, “not the war.”
That bright, flickering light within her dissipated and she sighed in satisfaction even as her temper began to burn again. Memories of finding and losing Shea Jameson only the month before to her Eternal and the call of white magic nearly choked her. Now another one had started along Shea’s path.
“There’s still time, though,” she murmured, tightening the slender belt of her silk robe around her waist. Her naked skin was soothed by the kiss of the cool, luxurious fabric, but her spirit was less easily appeased.
Teresa Santiago had taken the first steps in the Awakening, but she wasn’t completely out of reach just yet. Of course, Kellyn wouldn’t lower herself to traipse through a Mexican desert after the witch, but there were others nearby. There was still time to stop Teresa before she found the Artifact. Before she returned it to Haven like a good little witch.
Kellyn hated not being able to
do
something. She was not accustomed to feeling powerless. She couldn’t approach the next witch until she was awakened to her powers. She wouldn’t be able to find the next one until her awakening power sent ripples through the magical world. One Awakened witch at a time would be called to her power. So Kellyn was now faced with nearly a month of downtime before she could take up the reins of this chase again. Which only made her more irritable. After all, there was only so much drinking, sex and shopping a witch could do to kill time.
Tapping her finger against her chin, Kellyn smiled softly as another thought occurred to her. There was something she could do after all, while waiting for word from the desert. Tomorrow she would make a trip to Virginia. Maybe it was time to sit in on Henry Fender’s interrogations to cheer herself up.
“Babe.”
She whipped around and glared at the tall, well-built human standing in the open doorway of her bedroom. As a concierge at this hotel, he was only passably competent. As a lover, though, he had proven to be more than adequate. A dick that seemed to never deflate, indefatigable stamina and a brain with the wattage of a guttering candle.
He yawned hugely, stretched his arms over his chest—the better to display his impressive rippling muscles, no doubt. Then he gave her a grin and reached down to stroke himself. His very impressive cock leaped to attention. “I got something for you right here, babe. You coming back to bed or what? ’Cuz if you don’t want it, there’s plenty others who do.”
No respect
, she thought in a sudden fury. This insignificant male thought to bring her to heel? To threaten her with his pathetic human whores? Irritation spiked. Just another pitiful symbol of how badly her day was going, this male was, as the humans often said, the last straw.
In her mind’s eye, Kellyn indulged a whim and imagined the man’s eyes exploding. She could see his skin peel from his bones. Hear him whimpering, pleading for mercy.
Some of what she was thinking must have shown on her face because he immediately shifted gears. “C’mon, baby. Let me take you on another ride. Let me show you something new.”
Slowly, that flash of irritation drained away. Nothing to be gained by killing him now. If she did, she’d have to change hotels and then be forced to spend who knew how many hours finding another lover. And the next one might not be so well endowed. No, she wasn’t finished with this one yet.
Still, he needed to learn just who was in charge around here.
Kellyn lifted her right arm, pointed at him and clenched her fist. Instantly, the insolent male’s eyes bugged and his mouth dropped open. He lifted both hands to his throat and clawed at whatever was closing off his airway. Desperate, his eyes snapped to her as his skin mottled and his choking, gurgling groans sang into the room like the sweetest of music.
Slowly, she walked toward him, taking her time. She dropped her robe and felt the chill kiss of the air on her skin as she stopped alongside him. She flicked her fingers at his neck and he wheezed in his first easy breath since Kellyn had closed off his throat. Gasping, choking, he bent over at the waist, gulping in air.
As he did, she ran her fingertips down his spine, over the curve of his behind, until she cupped his balls in the palm of her hand.
He went absolutely still.
To make sure she had his attention, she gave a single, hard squeeze. He whimpered, but didn’t move. Smart boy.
“Show me what you’ve got, then,” she said, leaning in until she could lick the top of his ear. “But do yourself a favor and don’t speak again.”
Carefully, he turned his head, looked into her eyes and gave her a sharp nod. When she released him, he followed her into the bedroom like a well-trained puppy.
Chapter 30
R
une looked up into Teresa’s eyes and felt something inside him fist around the heart that lay cold and still within his chest. For the first time in centuries, he felt
alive.
With the Mating begun, emotion was erupting inside him. Colors seemed brighter. Every breath was a feast.