Dark Descent (Dark Series - Book 11) Read online

  She looked up at him, at the intensity burning in his eyes. It was so hot it branded her, seared her all the way to her heart. Joie felt the pull of his need, of his loneliness. He was a dangerous predator, not quite human. Powerful beyond anything she had ever dreamed of. And sexy. Heart-stoppingly sexy. Her arms were already sliding around his neck, her body molding itself to his. “Can we be together, Traian? How? Tell me how.” Because she had been alone in the midst of a family she loved. Always surrounded by people, friends, family, she was always apart. She never knew why until she heard his voice. Something had been missing from deep inside her, some essential part of her.

  “You can become as I am. Still Joie, still part of your family, but with the gifts and vulnerabilities of my race. Or I can age as you age. My strength will weaken and I will be more vulnerable to our enemies. It is your happiness that counts, Joie. I want to be in your life always.”

  Butterfly wings fluttered in the pit of her stomach. She felt she was on the edge of a great precipice. Joie tried to pull back before it was too late. The enormity of what he was offering was both frightening and exhilarating. He swamped her with his loneliness, with the intensity of her own feelings, so completely foreign to her. She tried to take refuge in humor. “I don’t even know if you’re good in bed.”

  “I want you to acknowledge to me that you know what I am offering you.” His mouth skimmed over her face, tracing her high cheekbones, her chin, moved lower to find the pulse beating frantically in her neck. His warm breath bathed her in heat, a seductive temptation every bit as powerful as the feel of his body heavy with need.

  She was in his mind, saw the choices clearly. His teeth sinking deep, making her his, bringing her into his world. Or Traian staying with her as if he were human, aging along with her, his great strength slowly fading, always vulnerable to enemies. Two choices. Two worlds. Only a heartbeat of time to choose.

  She knew she needed to answer him, not because he demanded it, but because the intensity of her feeling for him was so strong,

  she

  needed to settle her future in her own mind. His teeth nipped her skin, his tongue swirled over the tiny ache. She felt the throb in her deepest core, the clenching of muscles aching for relief.

  “Joie.” He breathed her name again. “I will love you to the end of your days.”

  The water poured over her, heightening her sensitivity to pleasure. She heard the honesty in his voice. The purity. Joie tilted her head to the side to give him better access, closed her eyes in anticipation. She was certain. She might not understand why it was right, but she had never been surer.

  His teeth sank deep. White-hot pain pierced her body, giving way instantly to sheer ecstasy. Lightning flashed in her bloodstream, hot whips of pleasure tormenting her. Heat welled up, threatened to consume her. She held him to her, closer, moving her body enticingly. It should have frightened her, the way he fed on her, devoured her with a hungry, craving lust more sexual than anything else.

  Traian traced every line and curve, every hollow, etching her body in his memory, wanting the moment to last several lifetimes. The rush hit him hard, a sexual hunger mixed with a dark craving nearly uncontrollable. For centuries his appetite had been insatiable, a terrible hunger that could never be assuaged, but now her blood satisfied his inhuman need. But his sexuality remained unappeased. Hard and hot and heavy with desire. His tongue swept across the pinpricks on her skin. His lips traveled down to her breast. Ancient words beat in his head, words of a ritual imprinted on him before his birth. Once said, there was no going back. Traian and Joie would be bound for eternity.

  The small sound escaping from her throat only urged him on. His tongue teased and danced over her taut nipple, caught the droplets of water as they beaded on her skin. “I claim you as my lifemate. I belong to you. I offer my life for you.” His hands shaped her body, slid up to cup her breasts.

  His face was dark, his gaze intent as he looked into her eyes. Joie felt a strange wrenching in the vicinity of her heart. A part of her tasted fear, wanted to cry out for him to stop, but another part embraced his words, understood the importance of each promise uttered. Her hands slipped over his chest, and she leaned forward to taste his skin, her teeth nipping his chest directly over his heart. She had never been a biter, but something urged her to sink her teeth deep, to connect them together. She swirled her tongue over his heavy muscles.

  She was killing him. His body hurt, a hard, painful ache; he was desperate for relief. “I give to you my protection, my allegiance, my heart, my soul, and my body. I take into my keeping the same that is yours. Your life, happiness and welfare will be cherished and placed above my own for all time. You are my lifemate, bound to me for all eternity and always in my care.” The words spilled out of him, the Carpathian ritual marriage, as old as time. He felt thousands of tiny threads binding them together as they were meant to be joined.

  He caught her chin in his hand, lifted her face to his, finding her lips almost blindly, wanting to devour her. She opened her mouth to him, melted into him. Traian caught her up in his arms, kissing her wildly, and carried her to the bed, cradling her in his lap so that his heavy erection pressed tightly against her buttocks. He whispered softly in his language, a strong command, even as his fingernail lengthened and he drew a line over his chest.

  Joie kissed his throat, her lips drifting down his neck, unerringly finding his chest and the gash there. A hot flame burst inside him, a firestorm of emotion and sensation. The back of her head fit into his palm as he held her to him, encouraging her to make the exchange. Heat poured through his body. He burned for her, his body hard and painful with need, even as pleasure swept through him. Traian shifted, lowering Joie to the comforter, following her down so as not to break the connection between them. When he was certain she had taken enough for a true exchange, he whispered the command to halt and closed the wound himself. At once his mouth was on hers, stealing her breath, giving her his own.

  Joie couldn’t remember how she ended up beneath him, his hips wedged between her legs. His hands were everywhere, stroking, caressing, inciting. There wasn’t an inch of her skin that he didn’t explore. She heard her own strangled cry as his fingers sank deep inside her, felt her muscles clench tightly around him. Ready. Waiting. Desperate for his invasion. Her fingers caught at his hips, pulling him to her in a frantic attempt to find relief. She had never wanted or needed anything more than to feel his body deep inside hers.

  Traian, certain she was ready for him, pinned her hips and thrust into her in one long, deep stroke. She gasped with pleasure, arched upward toward him, meeting him thrust for thrust. He cried out, unable to stay silent as he surged into her. She was a silken glide of fire and velvet as her feminine sheath gripped him tightly.

  Joie clung to him, unable to do much more than hold on, lifting her body eagerly to meet his as he drove harder and deeper, merging them together in a fiery tango that she wanted to go on forever. They were skin to skin. Their hearts beat with the same wild rhythm. The air crackled with electricity, and sparks leapt from nerve ending to nerve ending. The pressure built and built until she thought she might have to scream with the joy exploding through her.

  Then she felt him in her mind. Felt the sensations in his body, the gathering of a great force, much like a volcano. Hot. Thick. An inferno of desire and hunger mixed with intense emotion and pure lust. He filled her with flames and heat, an outpouring of pressure building from his toes to the top of his head. At the same time, he felt her every reaction, the waves of pleasure swamping her, racing to overtake them both, consume them completely.

  Joie cried his name, clutched his body tightly as they went over the cliff together, free-falling through space in wild exhilaration. She couldn’t catch her breath; her heart was pounding out of control. “I think I see fireworks,” she whispered into his chest.

  He laughed softly. “I think we produced the fireworks.” He lay over her, his body pinning hers, locked tightly inside
her while he kissed her slowly. Thoroughly. Leisurely. Savoring her. “Thank you for finding me, Joie.”

  “My pleasure, Traian,” she answered. He was moving yet not moving, and each small shift sent ripples of aftershocks through her entire body. “I can hear our hearts beating. Really hear them, like pounding drums. And I can hear the blood moving through your veins. Is that normal? Because if it is, eww, ick, and yuck.”

  He laughed softly, the sound vibrating through her entire body so that her muscles gripped even more tightly around him. “Think about turning the volume down. Our minds are very powerful. You can control the volume with a thought.” His teeth tugged at her lower lip. “Think about it and you can hear a pin drop in the next room. But if you want quiet, you simply turn the volume down.”

  “I don’t feel that much different inside. I thought I would notice changes.”

  “You haven’t gone through a conversion, Joie. It takes three blood exchanges. We have only exchanged one time.” He caught her firmly in his arms and rolled, taking her with him, so that she was straddling him.

  He filled her completely, still hard and thick so that every movement sent pleasure dancing through her body. His hands cupped her breasts. “I want to look at you. I still have a difficult time believing I actually found you. That I am with you.”

  Deliberately Joie moved, a long, slow glide up and down as if riding a thick pole. She felt him shudder with pleasure and arched back, pushing her breasts into his hands, getting a better angle to take more of him deep inside her. “Why are you waiting?”

  He watched himself, slick and wet from her body. “I want to give your body time to adjust to the changes.” It was difficult to get the words out, difficult to have a coherent thought when she was gripping him so strongly with her muscles, riding him harder and faster with long, deep strokes. Fire licked at his belly, flames erupted over his skin until the heat rushed to one central spot, collected there, and raged out of control.

  He let the sexual ecstasy wash over him, through him, take possession of him, all the while watching the glide of her body, the way her muscles moved beneath her skin, the way her breasts pushed into his palms and her nipples teased and tempted him. The sheer enjoyment on her face. Her thoughts, completely taken up with giving them both pleasure, were enough to send him over the edge. He picked up the rhythm, thrusting upward, driving into her as she came down over him. Each stroke took his breath, took his heart. Her body caressed his. Was wet and hot and tight. Brought him to the brink and left him wanting more. He felt her muscles contract, grip, squeeze, and grip until they both went up in flames together.

  Joie lay beside him, unable to move, wanting to laugh with joy. Her fingers found his, tangled, and held on. She believed in living life to the fullest, but she had always thought she would do so alone. For the first time in her life, she felt complete and utter satisfaction. Complete and utter peace.

  “I feel exactly the same way,” Traian said. “I cannot help wondering—if you had been the Carpathian and I the human with a beloved family, would I have been as trusting as you have been? You cannot know what your faith and trust mean to me.”

  Joie turned her head, a mischievous grin on her face. “I decided I liked flying and the shape-shifting would be cool. And if you do something so silly as to cheat on me or run off with someone else, I’m very good with a knife.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I thought you would be worried about giving up food. It does smell good. I have even sampled some from time to time.”

  “No one said anything about giving up food.” She eyed him with suspicion. “There are certain things women can’t do without, Traian. Chocolate at certain times of the month is essential to health. Not necessarily my health, but the health of all males in the vicinity. I’m not giving up chocolate, not even for great sex.”

  He propped himself up on one elbow, the pad of his finger tracing a circle around her breast. “Chocolate is that important, is it?”

  “Essential. Absolutely essential. That’s nonnegotia-ble.”

  “What kind of chocolate must you have?”

  “Dark chocolate, of course. Is there any other kind?”

  He dipped his head to pull her breast into his mouth, suckling strongly just to feel her reaction. His tongue swirled over her nipple before he kissed her. His kiss was long and slow and thorough. When he lifted his head, he laughed softly at her expression. She stared up at him, bemused, one hand touching her lips in wonder where the taste of dark chocolate melting in her mouth was very real.

  “How did you do that?”

  “You need and I provide—that is how it works. I believe you wanted to see your brother and sister tonight.”

  She allowed him to pull her up. “Anytime? You can do that anytime? Wow. I think I’m going to like this lifemate business.”

  Traian laughed, hardly able to believe the happiness blossoming inside him. Hardly daring to believe Joie was real.

  Chapter Nine

  Joie stood in the doorway of the lounge, her gaze scanning the crowd as she always did, getting a feel for the throng, picking out the ones most likely to cause trouble and the ones who might be interested in more than they should. She noted a tall, dark-haired man in the corner who looked up when she walked in with Traian. He quickly glanced away from them, taking a sudden interest in his drink, but she could tell he was watching them carefully. A second man drew her interest. He sat in one of the high-backed chairs near the fire, a newspaper in his hands. He was short and slender and wore reading glasses. He was looking over the top of the thick rims at Gabrielle.

  Jubal turned and waved to Joie. Gabrielle looked up, gave a glad cry, and rushed toward her. Joie prepared herself to be practically bowled over as her sister embraced her, hugging her joyfully. Over Gabrielle’s shoulder, she noted the man in the glasses looking past her to Traian. Recognition flickered across his face, and he carefully folded the newspaper and laid it on the small table in front of him before rising.

  Traian,

  Joie warned. She set Gabrielle gently to her side and just a little behind her.

  Traian scanned the room, was slightly shocked when he realized the slender man was human yet seemed to recognize who and what Traian was. Moreover, he was expecting Traian, had come to the inn in the hope of finding him. Traian noted with amusement that Joie had tried to position her body between him and the stranger. The rush of joy and affection, a lightening of his heart and soul, made him tremble. He couldn’t remember if anyone in his long lifetime had worried about him or tried to protect him. That small gesture meant the world to him.

  Behind it was her faith in him. She’d made a leap of faith, committing herself to his life, his world. She believed he wanted her happiness above his own, and she wanted to give him happiness. He had a mad desire to scoop her up and run back to her room, where he could make love to her all over again. He looked at her, allowed the thought to shimmer in his mind, to glow hot in his eyes.

  Joie laughed. “Stop that.”

  Gabrielle looked from her sister to Traian and made a rude noise. “Oh, no. Joie, we leave you alone with him for a few minutes and you seduced him, didn’t you?”

  Joie shrugged unrepentantly. “You have to admit, he’s pretty hot.”

  “I’m telling Mom.”

  “Well, you tattletale, if you say one word to Mom, I’m going to tell her you were thinking of taking that job researching the Ebola virus. You know what she’ll do when she hears that.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” Gabrielle said. She pushed at Joie’s shoulder as the slender stranger approached, trying unsuccessfully to move her sister aside for a better look. “Now that is a hottie, Joie. There’s more to a man than muscle.” She grinned at Traian. “No offense or anything.”

  “None taken,” he assured her.

  “Your tongue is hanging out, Gabrielle,” Joie whispered. “Stop ogling him. For you to be falling at his feet, he must have an IQ of two hundred.” She glanced up at Traian. “No
man she’s ever looked at could carry on a normal conversation. I think she can see straight through to their brains.” She nudged her sister. “Your eyes are popping out of your head.”

  “I was just looking,” Gabrielle hissed back. “At least I didn’t throw myself at him and show off by doing in underfed trolls fresh out of the grave.”

  “I was happy she did that,” Traian pointed out.

  “Yes, well, I suppose you would have been, under the circumstances,” Gabrielle conceded. “But she has a major hickey on her neck. If Mom saw that, there’d be consequences.”

  Traian bared his strong white teeth at her. “I think I can handle your mother.”

  Gabrielle and Joie looked at each other and burst out laughing. “It isn’t possible, Traian, even for you,” Joie said.

  The slender man stopped in front of them and held out his hand to Traian, although Joie noticed that his gaze continually shifted to Gabrielle. “I’m Gary Jansen. Mikhail Dubrinsky sent me. He asked me to convey his apologies, but unforeseen circumstances prevented him from coming himself. Should there be need, he asked that you put out a call to him and he will send Falcon.

  Mikhail’s brother is in Italy at this time, so I was sent to gather the information and aid you in any way I can.”

  Traian gripped Gary’s hand firmly. “I am Traian Tri-govise. This is my lifemate, Joie Sanders, and her sister, Gabrielle. I trust the prince and his lifemate are well?”

  “Raven has been ill,” Gary said briefly.

  Traian caught the echo of Gary’s thought.

  Miscarriage.