No Rest for the Wicked

18

He suddenly felt the smooth pad of her forefinger in his jeans. At the shock of her cool skin against his, he jerked, but she held him in place with a sure grip. She grasped him, and her forefinger stroked. He found his hands on her shoulders, rubbing up to her neck and back.

Even as he relished his first real touch in ages, he thought, She cut through my jeans that easily? Yes, with one flick. Surely she wouldn't cut him.

"You need to leave, vampire. Or I'll make that gravelly voice of yours considerably higher."

"Do it, then." He still hadn't even recovered from seeing her breasts for the first time. Or her bending over. Christ almighty, that had taken his every ounce of control not to seize her hips and fall into her. And now this? "Do it, or get used to having me around."

"What makes you think you get to decide the either/or? I might throw a new variable into the mix." The little witch continued stroking that forefinger, sending waves of pleasure through him. His mind blanked, just as she'd intended.

When she removed her hand completely, he shook his head hard. "We're at an impasse. I won't leave, and you don't wish me to stay. So, I have a proposition."

She yawned. "Enthrall me."

"You believe I'm a beginner with my sword? Then let us have a contest to see who's the best swordsman. The first to three points of superficial contact wins. If I win, I want your time until dawn to ask you questions—and have them answered honestly."

"It's against the law to tell one of your kind about the Lore."

"You don't strike me as very law-abiding."

"I am. When I make the laws."

That interested him. Exactly how much power did she wield? Was every creature in this world afraid of her?

"And when I win?" she asked.

"I'll leave you to sweet dreams with your sword for the night."

"The words candy and baby spring to mind... but you've got a deal." She tossed him his sword, then collected her own, letting her loose wrist circle it silently through the air. "When I win, you will leave immediately."

He freed his as well. "I doubt—"

She charged, striking with a blinding speed. He barely got his sword up in time. She parried again, and metal clanged as he did his damnedest to block her without hurting her. Her sword wasn't optimal for hand-to-hand battle. It had no knuckle bow to guard her fingers. If he slipped, she'd lose her fingers.

He had a good block and counter to her parry, but if she turned the wrong way... Can't risk it—

Her sword pressed into his chest. "Point," she said, her voice laced with smugness.

His lips nearly curled. They resumed. She was astoundingly good. Her eyes revealed nothing. She telegraphed no move, gave him no hint of weakness. He'd never imagined a female could keep him on his toes.

And he found himself enjoying the hell out of it, found himself enjoying pride in her skill. "You must have trained for years."

"You have no idea," she drawled.

Suddenly, she was no longer in front of him. But her sword was. In the blink of an eye, her sword was snatched behind him and planted into the skin over the base of his spine.

Sweet Christ... she moved faster than gravity.

From behind him, she whispered, "That's called speed, vampire. Beginning to see the appeal?"

Blood dripped. He gritted his teeth. "A blow to the back, Kaderin?" He was disappointed in her. He'd thought they had found some common ground. Even before he'd been knighted, living by the sword had always meant more to him than merely fighting with a sword. "Not very honorable of you."

When she faced him once more, he realized he could no longer treat this with anything but deadly earnest. He had to earn her respect and was learning that she wouldn't appreciate the qualities he'd always thought women valued. Courtesy, for instance, had garnered him nothing at the assembly or at the bottom of the world.

"Honor gets you killed," she said. They circled each other, her bare feet silent on the tiled floor. Her silk shorts kept fluttering, giving him tantalizing glimpses. Fighting her was the last thing he wanted to be doing with her. "I've found honor and survival to be mutually exclusive in the Lore."

"You are jaded. Too much so for someone so young."

This seemed to amuse her. "And do you think me young?"

He was centuries old, and before he'd met her, he'd often felt ancient. Her youthful energy and looks made him doubt she was a day over twenty-five. Or she had been before she became immortal. "I know you've competed in at least one Hie before, so you have to be older than two hundred and fifty years. But I doubt much more."

"What if I told you I'm very old indeed?" she asked. "Would it hinder your attraction to know that stars look different now from how they did when I was a girl?"

Her voice was lulling, and he found himself relaxing his guard and puzzling over her words—

She parried once more, flying to get to his back. He barely twisted around with his sword in time.

"I'm no match for your speed, unless I trace," he began, "which has always seemed cowardly to me. But since you don't see a problem with such tactics—" He traced behind her in an instant and swatted the broad side of his sword against her ass. "Point. And I believe I just spanked you as well."

You don't have to taunt her. Her shoulders stiffened just as weird lightning lit the sky outside and killed the shadows in the room. That same electricity he'd felt when he'd kissed her crackled in the air. Thunder rattled the glass doors. Valkyrie give off lightning with sharp emotion.

"Tracing." She pivoted slowly. "Thank you for reminding me of what you are."

It was as if some dam had burst. Her sword cut through the air like its own entity, reflecting light from bolts outside. She held the hilt so loosely, so confidently, and he found himself enthralled with her movements—to his detriment.

Yet her skills and technique could be beaten by focused power, and finally he began using his strength over hers. If he connected cleanly with her sword, then he followed through with all the power in his body, making her weapon quake and waver in her hands, jarring her with each brutal strike.

He feinted, catching her off-guard, just long enough to deliver a particularly punishing blow against her sword. He'd thought to send it flying, ending this, but amazingly, she somehow held on to it. Her body staggered as though she'd taken the hit to herself. She fell to a knee. Lightning exploded outside.

His chest seemed to clench. "Damn it, you weren't supposed to be able to hold that." A lifetime spent trying to avoid hurting women, and now he'd struck out at her as if she were a man?

"I don't plan to lose." She looked up at him through loosened curls. Her eyes were silver. "Can't exactly win without it, now, can I?"

But her faltering was just enough for him to trace to her. He forced himself to drive his advantage. He tapped his flat sword at her shoulder. "Point."

Her breaths were ragged. "This isn't yet finished."

"I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Only hurts for a moment." Her nonchalance disappeared when she sprang from the ground, charging once more. Their swords clashed again and again, mimicking the lightning outside. Her eyes began glowing in the scant intervals of darkness.

Then she pulled back, lowering her sword. Her brows were drawn as if in pain, and she was panting. The bolts quickened outside. In a pleading tone, she cried, "Ah, gods, Bastian, do you want me to beg you for it?"

He drew his head back in astonishment. Had he missed signals? Was she going to accept him? Her uncanny eyes called to him even as thunder exploded ominously.

Already thinking about where he would taste her first, he lunged for her—

Her blade planted just above his heart, and her eyes went dark and cold in an instant. "Point." She jabbed the tip and twisted, tearing his flesh with a menacing sneer. "I win, leech."

At the sight of his blood slipping down the center of her sword, he imagined all the others who'd bled on her blade, all the others who'd fallen for her beauty and trickery. How many had thought they were about to have her just before their lives ended? A sudden violent mix of thwarted lust and rage like none he'd ever experienced overwhelmed him.

He growled with fury, tossing his sword away as he traced behind her. He yanked her to him, his arms capturing hers against her body. She gasped, but when he pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her neck, she didn't immediately fight him, seeming to await his next move.

Good. He wanted her to surrender to him—in all ways, not just in this contest. She was close enough to feel his cock straining against her, and he wanted her to feel it. He wanted her pinned beneath him in bed, mastered by him. At the idea, he thrust uncontrollably against her soft ass. She sucked in a breath and seemed to flex her body into his. Emboldened, he brushed the backs of his fingers over her nipples. She shivered.

The storm whipped up outside, seeming to goad him. His hands caressed up from her flat belly, sliding under her bra and shirt, lifting them above her breasts. She sucked in a breath but didn't stop him. He sensed she was curious about what he would do. So was he.

He gently cupped her full breasts in his palms, groaning with pleasure. Her breathing quickened when he thumbed the peaks. She had luscious nipples, small and deep pink, begging to be suckled. He rolled and pinched them again and again, until they were so hard he imagined they ached. He saw her fingers go limp, and her sword clattered to the ground.

That was his permission. He kissed her neck, thrusting slowly against her. He wanted to do to her what her touch had done to him—stripped him down until there was no thought, only the need to have her. He wanted to make her shiver more, to wring moans from her lips.

When she raised her hands behind her to thread her fingers through his hair, he closed his eyes in bliss, groaning, kissing, kneading.

She froze just as a sudden jolt of ecstasy shot through him so much sharper than before—as if fire coursed through every vein in his body.

Her blood had touched his tongue.

"Bastian? Did you... bite me?"

Can't deny it. He was shuddering, and his eyes were rolling back in his head as he squeezed her. He'd accidentally grazed her neck in his frenzy, taking the merest drop.

She shoved his hands away from her, yanking her clothes in place and struggling to be freed. He finally managed, "I didn't intend to. I didn't plan to—"

When he released her, she turned, casting him the expression he'd hoped never to see again. Seeing that betrayed look in her silver eyes was worse than he could ever have imagined.

Her hurt was swiftly overcome by fury. "You had no right!" The doors at the balcony flew open as the spray of ocean and rain punched inside. With the wind tugging at her long hair, she screamed, "You've stolen more than my blood!"

She sank down, snatching her sword, then charged him, slashing. He traced to his sword to block her. She feinted a forward parry, then twisted to swing backhanded at his torso, putting all her strength into the blow. He traced back at the last second, or she'd have cut through him.

"I'm sorry," he rasped, leaving her.

Back at his castle, he sank into the bed, staring at the ceiling. He'd taken her blood, the smallest drop, and the taste of her had pleasured him so profoundly he knew he was changed forever.

He'd rather not know exactly what he could never have again.

Kaderin was right—it was more than just blood. But why did she think it so? What more had he stolen?

It had been an accident, but how many times could he continue to use that as an excuse? Intent, or lack of it, rarely erased the offense, anyway. This he knew.

He'd taken straight from the flesh. A true vampire. He remembered Murdoch had told him, "There are dangerous side effects to drinking from a source. You could turn evil."

"And then I might be in danger of losing my soul?" Sebastian had sneered.

He could no longer be a Forbearer, should he have chosen that road for himself...

Hours passed as he analyzed this eve. He recalled every word, every look, struggling to make sense of what had happened.

When he finally fell into a deadened sleep, Sebastian dreamed of a foreign land, inundated with rain.

The sun shone through the deluge, that bright intense light found in the northern lands. Kaderin was there, blinking against the rain. He saw it all as though through her eyes, and he knew it was very long ago.

She and others of her kind were trying to sleep on the bare ground on a hill. Only on an incline would the mud and water run down and not soak them any more than need be. They wore armor, breastplates of gold that were dented.

Kaderin's beaten armor cut into her ribs if she slept on her back and the undersides of her breasts if she slept on her sides. Ants crawled underneath the metal, stinging relentlessly, and sand trapped inside abraded her skin like sandpaper. She tried to ignore the discomfort—her cadre had not slept in seven days, and they needed the sun as their sentinel against the vampires they battled each night.

When she switched positions from her back to her side, the mud sucked down, making it difficult to move. "I vow to the gods," Kaderin said in a foreign tongue, tugging on her armor, "if we live through this, I will never sleep so confined again."

He should not understand her language, what sounded like a mix of old Norse and old English, but he did.

"Save your vows, Kader-ie," said a grinning young woman beside her who resembled Kaderin. "We all know we're not living through this one." Several around her chuckled. Kaderin laughed, too—because it was likely true.

And what else could one do with the knowledge of imminent death?

The dream changed to the actual battle they'd awaited. Sebastian had been in numerous battles, but he had never seen anything as grisly as this. In a night bright with lightning, metal rang against metal. Shrieks and thunder were deafening. All around Kaderin, vampires slashed at and beheaded Valkyrie who looked no older than girls.

Kaderin fought three at one time and couldn't break free, even when just beside her, a vampire lifted a Valkyrie's small body and brought it crashing down over his knee to break her back. Kaderin was close enough to hear the bones cracking but couldn't get to her.

From the corner of her eye, she saw the vampire's head drop to the girl's neck, then twist like a beast's as he pulled free the front of her throat. Just as Kaderin's sword sliced through one of her opponents, the crouching vampire lifted his head and smiled at Kaderin with flesh still in his mouth and blood spilling from his lips...

Sebastian woke in a rush. He gazed around the room, confused to find he wasn't on that field of battle. The dream had been that lifelike. He'd heard her heart thundering in her ears, and experienced her rage as distinctly as he'd felt the hot blood from a vampire's severed jugular spraying her. It had gotten in her eyes and marred her vision.

How could he dream these things with such clarity? What if this had really happened to her? He recalled her comment from earlier in the night: "You've stolen more than my blood!" This must be what she meant. The dreams were real. He didn't understand how it could be possible, but he'd experienced... her memories.

Her lack of humanity, and her "history" with vampires, which Riora had mentioned, had just become clearer. Because somehow he could see it. He raked his fingers through his hair. The armor and weapons of that battle had been from antiquity. "What if I told you I was very old indeed?" she'd asked.

She must be well over a thousand years old.

And Sebastian feared her life had been a series of battles like in the dream. Why would she ever give him a chance if she believed he would turn into one of those fiends?

After tasting her blood, would he?