Awakening (12 page)

He moved faster.

Her arms snaked around his neck and she pulled him closer, her breasts pushing against his chest.

Rachel,
he sent softly.

I’m here.

He slid his lips along her cheek, then kissed a line down her throat.

She moaned and writhed. “Do it, Duncan. God, how I’ve needed this.” He licked just above the vein, encouraging it to rise. She made short gasping sounds.

His fangs descended and in a quick strike, he sank into her vein and her blood began to flow. But how different she tasted than before. Her blood had always been rich and satisfying, yet now she tasted of her garden, of everything bountiful in life, everything that was Rachel.

His hips worked her at the same time that he suckled her vein, as he took what made him feel powerful and strong. He couldn’t believe Rachel was here, back in his life, in his bed, beneath his fangs.

She tugged at his arm and he knew what she wanted. He lifted his wrist to her mouth. “I’m going to bite you, Duncan. Is that what you want?”

Yes,
he sent.
Please, yes.

Her sharp fangs sank into his wrist and sent a thrill that travelled straight to his cock. When she began to suck, the sound forced his hips to move faster still. They were joined, his cock to her well, and each set of lips sealed around life-giving punctures.

Maybe it was the
breh-hedden
, or maybe it was just them, but his mind filled with a kind of euphoria he’d never known before.

He moved faster still, all the while drinking from her neck. Her hand held his wrist steady as she suckled.

I’m ready, Duncan.

He knew what she meant.
Me too.

He didn’t let go of her throat as he pumped even faster. Suddenly, the orgasm began to fly through him, pulsing in brilliant flashes of profound pleasure so that he was grunting heavily as he came.

She made rhythmic sounds against his wrist, never once pausing. But he could feel her ecstasy as he continued to drive, as the orgasm continued to pulse, as one lightning bolt of intense pleasure followed another.

As Rachel released his wrist, he lifted off her throat at the same time and roared. The orgasm continued to drive the length of his cock on and on.

Unbelievable.

Was this the
breh-hedden
?

Rachel screamed, holding onto his arms, her eyes wild, her body gyrating beneath his. Tears fell from her eyes. Her nails dug into his skin. Her body arched.

And as if all had been a preamble, a finale of pleasure exploded one last time as another orgasm, more intense than before, rocketed through him.

Without warning, suddenly his wings mounted and he was airborne, taking her with him. He worked his wings, supporting them midair. And still he pistoned into her as she screamed her ecstasy yet again.

When the pleasure finally passed, Rachel looked at him. “Duncan, what happened? What was that?”

He embraced her, still connected low and breathing hard. “I don’t know, but it was magnificent.” His wings undulated slowly, keeping them aloft.

“It was. And your blood tasted of your spicy cider scent. Oh, Duncan, even lovemaking has changed for us. What does all of this mean?”

Slowly, he lowered them onto the bed and let his wings cover them both, the upper arch of the feathers forming a private canopy above them.

She withdrew her arm from around his neck and lightly ran her fingers over the soft feathers. “Your wings are bigger now.”

“I know. And you’re right, everything has changed.”

She held his gaze. He adjusted his vampire vision in order to see her better and knew she’d done the same. “You are so beautiful, Rachel. I don’t deserve you.”

She caressed his face, leaning up to kiss him. “Do you think things can be different between us now?”

The hopeful look on her face and the tenderness of the moment brought something from deep within rising up and it wasn’t good. He felt panicky and for a moment had trouble breathing. He tried to stay focused on her, but couldn’t.

Rachel called it ‘building walls’.

Maybe some things had changed, but others hadn’t, like how he felt about any kind of serious relationship with Rachel.

His gaze skated past her eyes, to her hair, to the feathers of his wings, to anything but Rachel. “I’m sure it will all make sense in time.” Even his voice sounded dull.

She caught his face with her hands, forcing him to look at her. “Duncan, don’t leave me. I can feel you drifting away, like you always have. Duncan, please don’t do this.”

But there was nothing he could do as the familiar panic spread through his chest. His breathing hitched. She would leave him one day. She always left. Women left.

He needed a way out. He couldn’t remain in this bed with Rachel.

His mind shifted swiftly to the black ops team. There was so much to be done, battles to be fought, an even tougher war to win against Chustaffus, his minions, and the three generals.

“Duncan, please. Don’t do this.” She gripped his shoulders hard now, trying to hold on.

Her voice seemed so distant as he pulled out of her. “I have to get back to work. I need to contact my old squad, see if they want to join up. You remember Owen.” He was saying ridiculous things, blocking Rachel out, holding her at bay, like he always did.

He leaned back and after three deep breaths, he drew his wings into his wing-locks.

“I don’t give a fuck about Owen.”

He glanced down at Rachel. She was angry. And that was typical as well.

But her anger fired his. “I suppose you’re going to yell now, like you always do.”

She sat up and began hitting his thighs with her fists. “You disappeared. You always disappear when we get close and I hate you for that.”

Rachel was getting hysterical again. “And I hate it when you act like such a needy female.”

~ ~ ~

His words finished the moment for Rachel, reminding her why she had broken up with him the last time and why she’d promised herself never to get involved with him again. She knew she wasn’t any such thing as a ‘needy female’. He’d used those words to hurt her so he could create the distance he needed to feel safe.

He wouldn’t even look at her, and like at least a dozen times before, it was business as usual. He slid off the bed and headed into the bathroom. A moment later, the shower was running.

She folded a washcloth into her hand from the bathroom and slid it between her legs.

She was completely on her own. Again. Well, he’d just made all her decisions supremely easy. Like hell she was joining Luken’s black ops team or spending one more second working alongside Duncan.

“Rachel?”

“What?” she snapped, all out of patience.

“Something’s wrong.”

She moved into the bathroom, and found that he’d left the shower and was drying off. He looked really perplexed, worried.

“What’s going on?” Though she hardly cared.

“There’s a buzzing in my head.”

“How unfortunate.” She moved past him, dropping the washcloth in the hamper. She turned one of the shower heads on to let the water warm up once more. She wrapped her hair up in a towel and hopped in, washing between her legs and everywhere else as though trying to get rid of the recent experience.

She didn’t give a fuck that Duncan’s head was buzzing. She hoped it turned into a serious pain and stayed with him for a decade.

He said nothing more.

From her peripheral, she watched Duncan finish toweling off and leave the bathroom.

So what if he had a buzz.

She’d like to give him a buzz, a deep painful one right in his crotch.

She’d been so stupid. And even if it was the
breh-hedden,
the myth-that-wasn’t-a-myth had made one big-ass mistake this time.

Suddenly, something didn’t seem right, didn’t
feel
right.

She shut off the heads. “Duncan?”

But there was no response.

She extended her vampire hearing, letting it roam the entire house, but nothing returned to her. Oh, shit, had Duncan just been abducted?

Leaving the shower, she toweled off quickly. Her heart slammed through the next several beats. She hurried into the bedroom and found Duncan lying prone on the floor, dressed in battle gear. His eyes, though open, stared at nothing in particular.

“Oh, no.”

Yolanthe had taken Duncan over again, because he was back in that horrible trance.

The buzzing now made sense. If she hadn’t been so mad, maybe she could have helped him.

And then things got worse, because she heard a familiar rumbling sound.

Wreckers.

CHAPTER FOUR

The soul

Yields every answer.

Collected Proverbs –
Beatrice of Fourth

Wreckers.

Think.

They were usually men.

And she was naked.

That was a good start.

Mentally, she reached back to Apache Junction Two and the shooting range. She located the wrecking gun and a box of ammo. Holding out her hand, she folded each to her and with fingers that shook, she loaded both barrels.

The rumbling got louder. She only had seconds.

She slid the ammo beneath the bed, out of sight.

Staying close to Duncan, she rose to her feet but held the wrecking gun behind her right thigh; sawed-off worked.

The next moment, the wall that led into the living area of Duncan’s home exploded. She covered her face with her arm, but the initial break-through blast didn’t send shrapnel far. The second round would, though.

Two wreckers stood fifteen feet away, slack-jawed as they looked her up and down. She lifted her chin and drew her shoulders back to let them get a good look. She couldn’t believe she was going to do this, but Luken’s team needed more guns and she needed to protect herself and Duncan.

Each wrecker slowly lowered his weapon. She didn’t mistake the look in their eyes as they jumped the two-foot distance from the darkening grid to Duncan’s bedroom floor.

“What do you want?” she asked, a hand to her chest. It was the question all victims asked, as though it wasn’t obvious what the perpetrators were after. She trembled as much from the terrifying nature of facing warriors with guns in hand as from her fear they wouldn’t fall for her ruse.

In this case, the left wrecker smiled at the other. “This should be fun, but I’m going first.”

The other laughed. “Second works. She’ll fight harder.”

Sometimes, men were idiots.

Rachel wanted to distract the men a little more because she needed enough time to get the gun to her shoulder before they understood what she was doing. Without that extra second or two, they’d each have enough time to raise their weapons and return fire. “Do you like the lake?” she asked. She gestured toward the windows.

Both men fell for it and shifted slightly to look out at the dark body of water, lights glimmering from the homes on the opposite bank.

She lifted her gun at the same time and fired, taking the first wrecker down. The second man was raising his gun when she unloaded the second barrel. He flew backward several feet, but didn’t get his shot off.

Despite the huge spray of blood and flesh, she scrambled to find their weapons. Gathering them up, she laid hers and theirs on top of Duncan in a row, then slid into her dress. She could hear footsteps running along the grid. Maybe it would be the Third Earth clean-up crew, or more wreckers, but she wasn’t going to wait around to find out.

She stood next to Duncan and as before, she folded both of them back to the Apache Junction Two landing platforms.

~ ~ ~

Endelle stood in her private suite of rooms, off the main palace rotunda, and narrowed her eyes at Rachel. “I see you’re not completely useless. I’ll give you that.”

Rachel had taken out a couple of enemy wreckers and had brought back two new wrecking guns for Luken’s black-ops team.

Well, la-de-fucking-dah.

She had on the same pristine white gown she’d worn earlier, but she also had the look of a woman who’d recently gotten well-laid. With one leg crossed at the knee over the other, she sat in a chair at the foot of Endelle’s couch, sipping her coffee. And the whole time that she’d related her recent adventure, Endelle had wanted to bitch-slap the organic princess for still refusing to join Luken’s team.

Endelle decided that Rachel simply didn’t know who she really was despite her incessant pining for her garden and her simple carrot-growing life on Mortal Earth. Rachel had a steel rod in the middle of her personality, along with a helluva lot of quick thinking, a sure sign she was a warrior at heart.

She was a lot like her brother, Gideon, after all, even though she ran with clenched fists away from her obvious abilities.

Endelle shifted her attention to Duncan who was laid out on her couch, once more caught in Yolanthe’s snare and sunk in a trance. She’d had him brought back to her palace to keep an eye on the situation, insisting that Rachel come with him. Duncan had work to do on Third and somehow Rachel needed to realize she had to go with him.

His eyes were open, but from what he’d said at the villa, Yolanthe had him focused on her now through a Third Earth voyeur window. But it would be up to Duncan to once again break the bitch’s hold on him. In the meantime, she intended to keep the pair close to her and safe beneath the palace security system.

She sat down adjacent to Rachel and across from the couch. “So, what would you have done if the wreckers hadn’t shown up? Would you still be at Duncan’s home?”

What surprised Endelle the most was how sad Rachel suddenly looked. “As soon as I got myself toweled off and dressed, I had planned on returning to Mortal Earth, back to Seattle One. And in case you’re wondering, I would have taken a wrecker gun with me as well as some ammo.”

Endelle shook her head because this didn’t make sense. “So, you would have left, but you didn’t. Why not?”

At that Rachel sipped her coffee, afterward releasing a heavy sigh. “I didn’t have time. I found Duncan in this condition,” she waved a hand at him, “Then I heard the rumbling. That’s the sound the grid makes when it gets close to its destination.”