Her heart pounding loudly in her chest, she urged him on to move faster, to take her harder as she spiralled up towards the peak of her pleasure. “I love you.” The words ripped from her as she crested the peak and cried out her pleasure. She was falling, lost in a world of bright colours and endless sensations as he thrust hard into her and joined her in his own release.
He filled her with his seed, stroking into her to prolong her pleasure. As she slowly began to come down, her heart hammered loudly; heat rushing through her body in a short hard blast. She shuddered again at the unexpected sensation, her eyes flying open to see Gard’s glowing lavender eyes staring intently into hers as his chest heaved raggedly. He appeared as startled as she was.
“What was that? Did you use your magic?”
He shook his head and swallowed hard to regain his breath. “Not deliberately,” he finally answered rolling to his side and taking her with him. “I’ve never experienced anything like that before. It felt almost magical but it wasn’t anything I did.”
They lay staring at each other for a long moment, neither of them knowing just what had happened. Rayne didn’t think it was anything bad because the sensation had been pure ecstasy. She couldn’t believe that anything that felt that good could be evil in design.
Smiling she leaned forward and kissed her vampire, licking at his lips slowly to ease the concerned expression on his face. “Loving you certainly is interesting,” she laughed softly before she reluctantly extracted herself from his arms and slid off the bed.
“I need a bath.”
Gard let the tension ease from his body, admiring his woman as she headed towards the bathroom. He crawled from the bed after her, knowing she would be looking for him to supply the hot water. He was concerned about what had just happened but decided he would speak to his sister about it before he started getting too worried. Anakatrine’s magic was the strongest. Maybe she would be able to shed some light on the strange occurrence.
They had just finished a rather extended bath time when the first feelings of unease started to sink into Gard and his eyes flickered towards the cave opening. “Something’s wrong.” He was pulling on jeans and a T-shirt even as he spoke, pushing his feet into his boots as Rayne watched him carefully.
She dressed just as quickly, his unease transmitting down their mate bond. “What?”
“Vampires. Fuck! They passed through a while back. It must have been while we were otherwise engaged. They were heading towards the pack.” Gard was instantly furious with himself. He was supposed to be protecting the wolves and he’d dropped the ball.
“Gard.” Rayne’s tone was quite sharp though she was worried too. She stepped up to him and caught his gaze with hers. “I don’t like to see a look of regret on your face when it comes to our mating. If vampires passed through here then so be it. The pack is capable of taking care of themselves. They have four bloody Ancients in their number as well as the wolves own skills. You may have been The Guardian a long time ago but the world has moved on since then. You can’t be expected to protect everyone.”
He growled angrily, his eyes beginning to glow softly. “They’re her family, Sarayne. If anything happens to them she’ll be hurt.”
She didn’t need to ask who he meant. His connection with Rhianna was as strong as it was with her now they’d mated. It was going to be a challenge to deal with that closeness and not become resentful of it and she suddenly understood exactly how Freya must feel towards her. She turned and headed out the cave with her vampire close behind.
“I’m sure Annie doesn’t expect you to save the world either, Gard,” she remarked quietly, her tone still firm. “I swear if you even try to lessen our mating because of this you’re going to have one pissed off mate to deal with for the rest of your life. Get it in perspective.”
She shifted to her panther and streaked into the forest scenting the air as she did and smelling blood. She headed in that direction feeling a silent Gard coming to run beside her. She wouldn’t allow him to beat himself up about what may or may not have happened. He was entitled to have his own life and claim his mate. If she had to hold him down until he saw sense then she would.
They came across the wolves and other vampires just as Andrei and Alexei were melting into the trees leaving Rafe standing alone in the clearing. The big Alpha shifted to wolf form and then turned in their direction. He waited until they had almost reached him before he shifted back, his expression interested as Rayne shifted in front of him.
“That would be handy,” he remarked dryly as he noted her clothed body. “Don’t suppose you could share the secret?”
Rayne shook her head, her eyes on the bloodied rock at their side, the scent of the dead vampires filling the area. “Think you need to be a hybrid to be able to do it,” she answered in a distracted tone. “Whose?” Her head nodded at the stone.
Rafe’s lips tightened slightly as he looked away from Gard and met her gaze. “Freya’s. Before you overreact, Dayton’s fine as is she. They’re back at the compound. From what we can tell three or more vampires with guns attacked. Freya took the brunt of it but managed to get a distress call out to Nors and protected Dayton until we arrived. Unfortunately we have no idea why they attacked because the vampires were dead by the time we got here.”
Gard remained silent through it all, his anger ratcheting up that some of his people had attacked the pack and he’d done nothing to stop it. The fact everyone was okay didn’t matter to him. He should have been there to protect the pack not…
His thoughts trailed off as he looked down at Rayne. How could he possibly finish that thought? Not mating with her was unacceptable in his eyes and she’d already made it more than clear she wouldn’t tolerate him thinking it. He couldn’t regret it even if the timing had been off. She was watching him with a shrewd expression on her face and he sighed deeply and turned back to the Alpha.
“So the situation was contained.”
Rafe eyed them both carefully and then nodded. “We’re not completely defenceless,” he remarked drolly. He knew the vampire was annoyed that he hadn’t been there just as he knew his newest pack member had mated with Gard and he now had an additional member to his pack. He wanted to sigh too. It was only a matter of time before Freya joined as well. He silently asked himself what he’d done to deserve all these volatile personalities in his pack.