So here she sat waiting for her mystery man to make an appearance. Reyna glanced around again and caught the bartender’s gaze. The way he watched her every move creeped her out. She rose from the stool and began to roam aimlessly.
Where is he? Maybe she shouldn’t have bypassed the front entrance but she’d seen no need to stand in line waiting when she could just teleport in. Which reminded her, she’d have to tell Jacey she’d lost the coin. Hopefully Jacey wouldn’t end their friendship over it. The thing had to be worth a couple of thousand. It was doubtful she could replace it.
Recognizing the dance floor where they’d danced, Reyna stood near the railing and studied the men on the floor. None struck a chord of familiarity. No one had his height or his remembered bulk.
Why had she let Jorlan spook her into doing this tonight when she could barely think straight, her body a building inferno? Her cat wanted her to strip off her clothes, splay her thighs, and tug the nearest man on top of her. Reyna fought desperately for control. Maybe this was why Jorlan had pushed her to come tonight. As the strongest male in the pride her cat had set its sights on him.
A lock of hair blew into her face, disrupting her thoughts. Before Reyna could track the source of the unexpected breeze, a muscled arm clamped around her waist. She was tugged close to a hard, familiar feeling body before the air shimmered and she found herself facing a massive, decidedly masculine, platform bed.
“I’m not letting you get away from me again,” a deep voice growled into her ear.
Reyna gasped as his fangs sank into her neck. Ice shot through her veins and spread outward into the rest of her body. A second later the frost began to burn as she found herself flying through the air. She landed on the bed and bounced once. Using her recently discovered feline agility, she twisted and sprang up to crouch on all fours facing the vampyr, teeth bared. Had she been in her cat form her fur would be standing on end.
Raising one hand to grip her bleeding, throbbing neck, she bared her teeth and hissed. “Why’d you bite me? What the hell did you inject into my neck? It hurts. ”
He shrugged out of his shirt, allowing it to drop carelessly to the floor. “Mating venom. It prepares your womb for my seed.” His belt followed the shirt. “It also works as an aphrodisiac.” He glanced up from unlacing his boots. “After tonight, you won’t have any other lover besides me. If you like that outfit, I suggest you remove it while you still can.”
“Look, I didn’t come here to…Ahhh!” Fire streaked past her clit and hit her pussy full force, bowing her back.
“Too late,” he announced. A quick slash of his claws and her leather pants were no more.
Reyna’s cat purred approvingly at the dominant action. This was a male worthy of tangling with. “Please.”
Both her feline and female selves out of their mind with need.
“Oh definitely!” He fell on her like the beast he was, flipping her onto her belly before covering her. Reyna, or maybe it was her cat, elongated her spine and lifted her ass into the air enticingly.
The male fisted her hair in one hand and used it to anchor her head and shoulders to the mattress. The damp tip of his cock found her opening and with a mighty thrust, filled her to the brim.
Reyna screamed. Her claws sprouted and ripped holes in the fancy bedspread.
He set a brutal pace, his hips plunging and retreating rapidly. His body blanketed hers as he pinned her in place. She bucked in his hold, trying to move closer, urging him deeper. He sank his fangs into the back of her neck near her spine and her cat went crazy. Ecstasy detonated like fireworks in her system.
Then the Vampalien side of her nature took over. Her fangs lengthened and she sank them into his forearm, feeding deeply. Her starving cells soaked up his more powerful blood, but more than his blood filled her. Her mind got hit with a stream of images, flashing by at warp speed—him as a child, as a young man, a warrior, and a leader. More importantly to her heart, she saw his loneliness as he waited for the one woman to whom he could bind his soul.
Reyna still didn’t know the male’s name but had the feeling she was truly seeing the essence of who he was. It should have freaked her out, this previously unknown ability manifesting, but instead felt totally natural. She was operating with instincts she hadn’t known she possessed.
The part of her she’d gained from her father, the part she’d been forced to suppress all of her life, that newly awakened section pushed past her feminine sensibilities and Felini reserve and opened her spirit wide, letting this man, this Vampalien into her heart. Then it locked the door behind him so he could never leave and threw away the key. It recognized the emptiness in him for it matched the lonesomeness in her. A barren landscape he slowly consumed and filled with his essence.
Reyna felt a brief glimmer of awareness. With this man, this vampyr, she could find the love and acceptance she’d been searching for all her life. All she had to do was take what was being offered to her. If she had the courage to do so.
It doesn’t matter, a voice she’d never heard whispered. He is ours and we are his. You can’t fight destiny.
What’s done is done. There was no going back and nothing to return to, Reyna realized and let loose the last minute particle of her restraint. She felt her soul reach out to his, and the connection, when it came, was explosive. Wave after wave of emotion crashed over her. His, hers, theirs. His pleasure and hers combined, setting up a feedback loop with each surge more intensive than the first. When it reached crises point, Reyna screamed as she imploded. The Reyna she thought she knew was no more and someone else, someone greater rose from the fiery ashes like a phoenix to take her place.
*****
Can’t. Stop.
The mating venom searing his higher cognizance, Tariq rutted on his Heart’s Blood like a stag gone berserk. Fangs embedded in her skin and talons out, he humped mindlessly. One overwhelming impulse drove him—the need to get closer. He had to be inside of her and not just her body. He was obsessed with the desire to imprint his soul on hers and bind the two of them together so tight she’d never want to be free of him again.
Then she sank her incisors into his arm and began to feed, and Tariq learned what being out of control truly meant. One orgasm. Two. Three. It wasn’t enough.
He felt it when she opened to him. Her emotions and thoughts washed over him in rapid-fire sequences. Tariq felt her fear of committing to him and of what he was. Her loneliness and utter aloneness in the midst of those to whom she should be closest. Her need to belong, to be accepted, and to be loved.
Tariq saw how Reyna viewed herself and thought, No, that’s wrong. You’re more. You’re special. Loved. But he knew words alone would never be enough to convince her. He sensed more things he couldn’t completely grasp but knew doing so was the key to understanding his Heart’s Blood.
He saw her fragility and her strength. She’d opened herself to him after all the pain she’d been through, and it was a gift he didn’t deserved. Tariq vowed then and there to be worthy of her trust.
In gratefulness and with a bone deep need to connect with his Heart’s Blood on every level possible, Tariq gave himself to her. His heart, his soul, his body— the very essence of who he was at his core—Tariq gave it all. Without her he was nothing. She was his everything. The blood in his veins. The very beat of his heart.
She accepted his gift, magnified it, and gave it back. He echoed her actions. This cycle went on and on until heart pounding, blood thundering, Tariq roared as he released the last of himself into his Heart’s Blood and was…reborn.