Dark Sentinel Read online

  I am not a possession, silly man.

  The tenderness in her voice nearly undid him. Emotion welled up, sharp and terrible, a love so strong and intense, it was unlike anything he’d ever felt or experienced.

  And if you died to save me, we would not be together, so no dying, she added.

  There was that humor. He had that. He was given that. A woman so beautiful inside and out. A warrior of true measure. Intelligent and possessing a sense of humor. She had it all and somehow, the universe had deigned to give her to him.

  Her gaze drifted over his face, touching him with love. He felt it. She didn’t need to say it, because it was there in the way she looked at him.

  “Kiss me again, Andor. I love when you kiss me.”

  She sounded both needy and wanton. Tempting him. His little siren. He kissed her because there was no resisting her, and he didn’t want to. He craved her kisses. He loved the way she made his body hard and demanding. He let that take them both, a slow burn that started with just worshiping her mouth. Nibbling. Biting. Licking. Tracing that sensual bow. Breathing and exchanging breath.

  Lying over her body, her skin sliding under his, so soft, sensations crashed through him until he felt every inch of her inside and out. He framed her face with his hands, that face that made him ache with need, burn with hunger and soar with emotion, with love for her. He dipped his head and pressed kisses up her throat and over her chin to the corners of her mouth. He tugged at her bottom lip with his teeth, very gently, savoring every awareness of his body and hers—as well as the differences between them.

  He kissed her again and again, conveying without words what was in his heart. He had no idea a man could feel so much for a woman. He had lived long, century after century, and he had touched the minds of men in love. He had even shared, for a moment, Dragomir’s love of Emeline. Still, that hadn’t prepared him for the way he felt toward Lorraine.

  When he had uttered the ritual binding words, tying them together for all time, he had given her his heart. He had given her his soul. He hadn’t thought what those words meant until that moment, kissing her, absorbing her into his mind and body. Her taste. Her feel. Every inch of her. He had been created for her. He knew that with absolute certainty.

  You’re going to make me cry.

  You worried that I did not choose you, that you would not have been my choice. You worried you would never know love.

  You see too much.

  He lifted his head to look down at her, his gaze drifting over the beautiful bone structure and feathery lashes. Over the woman who owned his heart and soul—who always would have them in her keeping.

  I see you, Lorraine. Never think for one moment that you are not my choice. That you are not in my heart. I cannot see anything or anyone but you.

  He could have spoken aloud, but it was so much more intimate speaking telepathically. She would feel his heart, his love for her, with every stroke along her mind his words created. Tears glistened on the tips of her lashes and he took them off with his lips.

  I see only you, Andor, she replied. She arched up, pressing her breasts into his chest, her hips bucking a little as if her body was as equally hungry for his.

  He could hear the truth of her words—and also the little hint of surprise. He liked that as well, the flavors in her voice. She hadn’t expected to love him so quickly. She didn’t understand the pull of lifemates, but she knew it was there. More importantly, she had deliberately studied him, once he told her about the concept and that she was his. Lorraine had gone into his mind and tried to learn who and what he was—what he was about. He could have told her. His character was wrapped up in one word—honor.

  She nipped his chin with her teeth. Loyalty as well. Honor and loyalty. There are so many more, Andor, all good, all traits that appeal to me. I believe in honor and loyalty as well.

  He knew that. He dipped his head to the temptation of her breast. The moment his tongue flicked her nipple, she jumped. He lifted his head to look at her quickly, judging her reaction. “You’re very sensitive.”

  “In a good way.”

  He smiled at her and once more ducked his head toward her breast. He took the time to know every inch of both breasts. The curves were very pronounced, those round mounds that came to a peak he liked to flick and tease with his fingers before he suckled, pressing her nipple to the roof of his mouth and stroking with his tongue until she cried out and writhed beneath him.

  He touched her mind to feel what she was feeling. Her body was slick and hot with desire, needing him. Just as she had made his body come alive, every nerve ending on fire, he was doing the same to hers. He kissed his way back to up to her mouth as he reached for one of her legs, wrapping it around him, opening her more fully to him. He took the other leg, lifting it, encouraging her to do the same with her left one, until she had hooked her ankles at the small of his back.

  He touched her mind once again. There was no trepidation. His woman was fearless and eager. Needy. He circled the heavy girth of his cock with his fist, fitting the broad head against her slick entrance. The heat scorched him. Drew him. He needed, too. He pushed deeper and both shuddered at the same time as the overwhelming sensation threatened to drown them in pleasure.

  Her tight muscles fought him, and then slowly relented, allowing him to push deeper so that he felt his cock was gripped firmly in a silken, hot fist. He threw his head back, savoring that feeling, filing it away with so many others she’d given him. This was the ultimate, that slow burning heat surrounding him, welcoming him, trying to keep him out, yet pulling him in. Beckoning. Tempting. The sensations poured over him. Into him. Filling him. Filling all those tattered and torn places in him until he was whole.

  He threaded his fingers through hers and pushed her hands into the mattress beside her head, looking down, straight into her eyes. He held her that way, pinned beneath him, his eyes holding hers captive. Tet vigyázam. He repeated it so she would hear him. Understand him. Never doubt again. Tet vigyázam. He dipped his head to brush a kiss across her mouth. At the same time, he thrust his hips hard, burying himself deep, driving through her thin barrier to claim every inch of her. Wanting body, heart and soul.

  She gasped and went stiff, frozen beneath him. He kept still as well, refusing to release her gaze. Tet vigyázam means I love you, Lorraine. And I do. My language or yours. Any language. I love you. I do not want there to be any doubts in your mind. Not now. Not ever. Whatever happens, we do this together.

  He felt her body slowly relax around his. That vise gripping him eased enough for him to move. Her smile was tentative, but it was there. I know I am falling in love with you, Andor. Everything about you, even the fact that you will want me to sleep beside you in the ground.

  He wanted that. He did. When she was beside him, no harm could come to her. He set a rhythm. Gently. Tenderly. His heart had turned inside out. His soul, that part of it she had guarded through centuries for him, shone a light so bright and hot, so strong, he felt as if he was burning from the inside out.

  She loved him. She chose him. She was choosing his life, his world. Their hearts beat a little wildly—but together. Her breathing turned ragged, his was labored, but each time he bent his mouth to hers, they exchanged breath, exchanged air. His mind remained firmly in hers, feeling every stroke of his cock, stretching her, claiming her, while she surrounded him with a sheath of pure fire. The friction as he rode her was phenomenal. Artistry. Pure beauty.

  Lorraine was everything he had ever thought a lifemate could be, and yet so much more. “Tet vigyázam.” He couldn’t say it enough. He tightened his fingers around hers, holding her beneath him, staring down into her eyes, his body on fire, in paradise.

  Already, far too soon, that feeling was starting in his toes and moving up the backs of his calves, flames licking up his legs, threatening to ignite a firestorm. Her breathing was ragged, labored, her hips mo
ving to match his, her sheath gripping so tightly it felt as if he had been swallowed alive and was being strangled by that silken, scorching hot fist.

  “Come with me, hän sívamak.” It was a command, nothing less.

  Her gaze clung to his, and he saw what he’d needed all along. Her complete trust. She let go, her hips bucking, the waves intense, so strong her sheath clamped down on him, and then the flames reached his balls and the seed boiling there. As if she’d touched a match to a stick of dynamite, he erupted, a long explosion, jet after jet splashing the walls of her sheath, triggering even stronger ripples in her.

  They rode it out together, soaring, shuddering, their hearts keeping that same wild rhythm. Andor realized that he liked being out of control. He’d spent so many centuries with complete discipline, he never thought that he would be able to let go the way she made him. There was such freedom in feeling, in emotion.

  When he could get his breath back, he kissed her, tasting her pleasure. Tasting the way she loved him. He savored that as well, locking it in his mind to take out and look at at a later date. There were so many new sensations. So many overwhelming desires and emotions. “Thank you, Lorraine. I cannot say that enough.” He brushed kisses on her eyelids, on her nose and down to her chin, where he couldn’t help but nibble. He could stay there for the rest of the night, although he knew that sunrise was coming all too soon.

  “Andor?” Lorraine’s voice shook. Her breath suddenly hitched in her voice. “Honey, you have to move right now, get off me.”

  “What is wrong?” He was puzzled. The quake of fear and anxiety in her voice was very real. He felt it in her mind. He was still reeling from the way his body was feeling. Almost euphoria. Certainly, he had experienced something very close to ecstasy, and it wasn’t all about his body. All of him had been involved, his entire being. “Csecsemõ?”

  “I think you’re bleeding again. Honey, move right now and let me see.” Her hands pushed on the heavy muscles of his chest. “All of them will kill me if we opened any of those wounds. They’ve already given you so much blood and I don’t know how many healing sessions. Between you and all the injuries the others sustained in their battles, Gary was exhausted. Just when we were leaving, I heard Tariq order him to go to ground.”

  Andor smiled down at her and nuzzled her chin with the dark, shadowy bristles on his jaw. He left behind a smear of strawberry so he kissed that little spot on her chin. “Did you catch Gary’s response?”

  “No.”

  “It was in Carpathian, and I think he managed as many of the swear words as possible in one sentence. Not that it would deter Tariq from giving him another order. Gary’s in the ground right now. So are Ferro, Isai, Sandu and Dragomir.”

  “How badly was Ferro injured? And don’t change the subject.” Her hands pushed harder. “Get off, right this minute, Andor.”

  He laughed. A full-out laugh. He hadn’t even known he could laugh that way so the sound was startling. Shocking. “I cannot believe you just ordered me in the same way Tariq gave a command to Gary. I am your lifemate, Lorraine.”

  She leveled her green gaze at him. “Exactly. I took note of those vows you said for both of us when you irrevocably tied us together without my consent. Your body was placed in my care, so get off me, you big oaf, and let me care for you.”

  He was still laughing. Happy. He liked her bossy tone. It made him hard all over again, and the last thing he wanted to do was withdraw from that hot haven of sensual pleasure. She was right, though, he felt the wet slickness spreading across his belly and smearing blood onto her. With a little sigh, he withdrew and rolled over. She sat up immediately, her eyes going wide.

  “You are bleeding.”

  It was an accusation. He even wanted to laugh at that. “I know, csecsemõ, but believe me, it was well worth those few drops of blood.”

  “Few drops of blood, my ass,” she countered him, in the cutest, sternest voice he’d ever heard her use. “Tell me what to do right now. Do you need my blood?”

  He noticed her gaze shifted away from the blood on his belly, her aversion rising in spite of her attempt to keep it from happening.

  “The healer has been working from the inside out, so most of the damage inside is repaired. What you see is simply surface laceration. It is more cosmetic than anything else. There is no need to worry. I can stop this myself.”

  “Then do it. Right. Now. Do you need blood?”

  “Lorraine, look at it. You are afraid for me and it is not necessary—”

  “You nearly died. Maybe you did die, I don’t know. I only know I had to go to a really dark, cold place to find you, and it was horrible. Everyone said you were gone. Gary and Ferro went repeatedly. Sandu went. Then they told me it was our tie that was the only thread they had to you, so maybe you weren’t in a coma and you were dead. It’s your world, and your beliefs, Andor, but I saw you. I saw you like that.”

  The confession burst from her. No, the trauma. He hadn’t considered the cost to Lorraine emotionally, that journey his brothers and the healer had chosen to make to retrieve him from the land of the dead and dying.

  “Sívamet, I am sorry you were so frightened for me. There is no need to remain so. I cannot die from these wounds now. They are mostly repaired. The healing soil provided here is extraordinary. It will aid me faster than you can imagine.” He covered the seeping blood with the palm of his hand, sending warmth to the injured area where the master vampire so many risings earlier had tried to rip his intestines out of him and nearly succeeded. Light erupted around his fingers, and he felt that burst of shocking heat. “It is closed now. The blood is no more than one would expect if a human scraped a knee when they fell.”

  She lifted his palm away from the injury and stared down at his smooth stomach. Relief lit her features as she let out her breath. “Okay, I have to admit I panicked a little bit.”

  He took her hand and wrapped her fingers around his needy cock. She glared at him. “We are done playing until Gary gives you the thumbs-up.”

  He scowled at her when deep inside he wanted to laugh at the idea that he would allow another man to dictate to him whether or not he could make love to his woman. “That healer is not going to have any say in our sex life whatsoever.” He growled out each word, making the noise as close to that of a wolf as he could get.

  He found himself in a staring match with her. His woman. Love had his heart aching, there was so much there. It spilled over into every part of his body. She sighed, conceding the battle to him. He wasn’t about to tell her Carpathians didn’t need to blink the way humans did. That would mean, later, when she was Carpathian, she might actually win in a stare-down.

  “Everything with you is fun,” he said. “Or sensual. Thank you for giving me your trust. I know, after the things that happened and the way your friends turned on you, that trust is not easy, so it is all the more cherished as the gift it is.”

  “Tell me about Ferro’s injuries,” Lorraine persisted. “I won’t tell Gary on you, and I’m not going to tell you how much I love you because you don’t deserve it right now, but I need to know why it’s always a hushed-up thing when one of you really gets hurt.”

  She hadn’t let go of his cock and her fist slid up and down his shaft almost lazily, as if she wasn’t really aware she was sending heat spiraling right down his spine. He took a breath and tried to think with a clear mind.

  “We cut off all pain, Lorraine, so we do not feel it. Therefore, if we do not feel it, pain is not acknowledged. Injuries, even life-threatening wounds, happen in nearly every battle. You cannot fight a vampire and expect to walk away unscathed. These vampires we have been fighting are not nearly indicative of what the undead are capable of doing.”

  “I felt Ferro’s injuries.”

  “I was afraid you might have. It concerned all of us, Ferro, Sandu and Gary, that you would be able to do just that. I shiel
ded you the moment the pain slipped through. Ferro had tried to keep it from you, but he fought a master vampire. He ended the battle quickly, but in taking the heart, the vampire managed to do damage to him.”

  She nodded. “I replayed the images I saw when he was battling the vampire.”

  Andor stiffened. Ferro was extremely powerful. She had no business being anywhere near Ferro’s mind. “You cannot ever do that again.”

  “I wasn’t prying,” she defended.

  Her hand stopped, but her fist tightened, squeezing down, threatening to strangle him. The sensations tore up his body. A firestorm burned out of control in his belly. She propped herself on one elbow, turning her body toward him, leaning over his thigh so her hair brushed over his legs and groin. The silky mass of chestnut teased every one of his senses.

  “I caught a glimpse of the battle when he was fighting and then when he was injured. I wasn’t in his head. He slipped inadvertently into mine. I kept those images and studied them because I wanted to see technique. I was able to see that he didn’t shield his body from the vampire’s claws and teeth. He got torn up while he worked to extract the heart.”

  “It is not easy to remove a heart, so giving the undead something to do while the hunter pries that wretched organ loose makes it easier. I never want you to do such a thing. Not ever.” He made that a decree.

  A slow smile sent a burn spiraling through his body. “I won’t. You don’t have to worry. I never want to get that close to one of those things.” She gave a delicate little shudder and then sat up, her fingers leaving his shaft.

  He caught her hand and guided it back to his cock. “You started something, csecsemõ, you cannot leave in the middle of it. I want that hot mouth of yours wrapped around me.”