Chapter 18

My breath catches in my lungs as his hands carve up my thighs, around my hips, and clutch my ass in a greedy double handful. He breathes out, hot breath huffing over my pussy, and then his tongue darts out, flicking against my lips, slicking up the seam.

I feel him, his mind, curling up against mine via the bloodlink, wordless presence enveloping me with his essence, so there is nothing else in this whole world but Caspian.

Block the others out,he commands me.

I obey, raising a mental wall around my mind and his, locking everyone out and us in. Mentally, I even include a DO NOT DISTURB sign.

I feel humor wash through me from Caspian—he must have somehow caught that.

The humor is burnt away as he teases me, breathing on my sex, touching the lips with his tongue-tip, kissing, running his tongue up one lip and then the other, teasing, teasing.

"Cas," I breathe. "Please."

Hush. This is your punishment for making me think you were dead.__

I bite my lip, whimper. "It wasn"t on purpose, Cas."

Hush, I said.

"But…Cas…I want—"

He pulls his mouth away, blacked-out eyes staring up at me, waiting.

It feels like a teacher in front of an unruly class saying, "I"ll wait."

I huff. "Fuck. Fine. Punish me, then."

When I go silent, he slowly nuzzles his mouth against my sex in a slow hot kiss, without tongue.

Unsatisfying. A tease.

I squirm, fighting the urge to beg.

I close my eyes, rest my hands on his shoulders, and try to relax into the moment.

It"s hard—all I want is him, is more. MORE. I want his venom, I want his blood, I want his vitality, I want him inside me.

Instead, he slides his tongue up my seam, fuses his lips over my clit and kisses, sucking, creating a sliver of what I need.

I fight the urge to beg; he"d stop if I did.

His hands cup my ass, clutching and caressing in alternation. His lips ghost up my sex, his tongue slides up the seam.

Fuck, I need him. I know he feels it—I'm pouring my need into him across the bloodlink—but he ignores it.

Teases me. Tongue, slipping and dipping, licking and lapping. Lips touching, breath huffing.

I ache for him.

I blast images across the link: him, inside me. His tongue swirling over my clit, his cock driving inside me, our bodies moving in perfect synchrony. I focus the image: my sex stretching around him, working to accommodate him; our joined essences smeared along his thick length as he plunges in and pulls out; I draw upon memory and feed him my sensory memory of him filling me to glutted repletion, the feel of my orgasm swelling and welling, growing and burgeoning, exploding through me and shaking me and wringing me—

He growls, the sound humming through my body, and then, abruptly, his tongue sears in against my clit, and I scream.

That what you want?

Not nearly. But it"s a start

He huffs a laugh, and then his thumbs pry my sex apart and his lips fuse around my clit and he suckles until I scream, waves of incandescent bliss ripping through me.

Make your body lighter.

He tickles my clit with his tongue-tip, light, quick, darting flicks that drive my need into a supernova of desperation. I thrust my hips at him wantonly, clutch at his cool thick dark hair and seek more, more, more.

I focus on lightness—my body as a feather, hollow bones, a soap bubble lilting on a summer breeze. Vampiric magic sizzles and I feel my body become less; on a whim, I add a touch of vitality, imagining myself lifting, defying gravity, rising to the ceiling like Mary, Bert, Jane, Michael, and Uncle Albert in Mary Poppins. Magic bubbles, ripples, dances in my veins, effervescent and ticklish.

Caspian"s mouth takes my sex and plunders it, and I cry out, thrusting harder against his mouth, needing to come, needing his cock, needing his kiss, needing more and more and more of Caspian, my bloodmate, my soulmate.

He complies, to a degree.

He fills my channel with a long middle finger, delving deep and withdrawing slowly, curling his fingertip against that wonderful, incredible place high inside me, making me shudder all over, dragging out of me a guttural groan as orgasm begins to build at the base of my belly.

"Oh, please, Cas, please. Make me come, baby." I grip his hair with a rough, ragged grip, secure in the knowledge that I can"t hurt him—not low on blood as he is.

He growls, a feral hungry sound. Not yet.

"Fuck—please? God, please? I need it."

You need to come?

"Yes!"

He licks my clit, once. Adds a second finger, and starts to slowly fuck me with them.

My orgasm responds like a sentient thing, lifting, rising, coiling like a venomous serpent.

I make myself lighter yet.

Caspian makes a surprised sound in his throat, and I open my eyes: we"re floating. We"re fucking floating in the air. I cackle a laugh, but it"s torn apart and remade into a long high moan as he suckles my clit and fucks me with his fingers.

Trust me?

"Don"t ask stupid questions, Cas."

I feel his mental laugh. Just making sure.

"Why? What do you have in—"

Words fail me, then—Caspian circles my hips with his other arm, his cool strong hand caressing my skin along the way, carving over my hip, over the globe of my ass, and then he flattens his hand at the top of the crease, fingers pointing down…sliding his touch downward, middle finger parting my ass cheeks, pressing, pressing, finding the soft sensitive knot of muscle there.

Still, trust me?

"Absolutely," I breathe.

At first, he toys with me. Touches lightly in minuscule circles, slowly applying more and more pressure, until the circling becomes a light throbbing, pushing in ever so gently, and then subtly more, and more.

I tense at first, but then slowly relax, because it feels amazing.

His touch vanishes for a moment, as does his mouth on my clit—I whimper at the loss of both, but I glance down at him and watch as he carefully deposits saliva onto his fingertips.

I spread my legs open for him, and he smears hot wet saliva onto me and resumes the gentle but insistent pressure on my rear entrance. Now, though, I"m lubricated, and the pressure becomes more. His fingertip pushes into me, and I gasp, spasming with tension borne from surprise.

I quickly recover and force myself to relax, even as he renews his oral assault on my clit. I cry out, and the cry becomes a groan as he slicks his two fingers inside me, giving me a slow rhythm—he matches the rhythm with both hands, fucking me in both places, two fingers in my pussy and one in my asshole, and all the while his tongue and lips ply my clit with ever-changing and unpredictable movements—faster, slower; harder, gentler; licking, sucking; flicking, circling.

"Oh fuck, fuck, FUCK!" I forget where we are, who I am, who he is. There"s only sensation.

I curl forward and then thrust—I feel us spin in place, as I"ve somehow inadvertently created a zero-G bubble around us. I open my eyes briefly, and we are indeed slowly rotating in place like astronauts on the ISS.

Awareness of time and place dissolves as he increases speed and intensity, fingers driving inside me in both places at once while his tongue thrashes my clit relentlessly.

Orgasm rips from zero to a million in an instant—one moment I'm roiling and gyrating as the climax builds to a crescendo inside me, and the next moment I'm hurled into a hot wild frenetic orgasm unlike any I"ve ever experienced—and my Caspian has given me some intensely memorable orgasms.

I scream, unabashed, thrashing and thrusting and weeping.

I crack my eyes open and see bloodtears hovering in front of me—bloodtears which glow with internal golden-white luminescence, globules of pure bloodmagic.

He doesn"t relent even as the orgasm tears me apart, a white-hot lance of ecstasy searing through my body, the intolerable heat ratcheting to impossible new levels as he works me with his fingers, with his tongue.

I lash out with magic, instinctually—a harmless glamour that disappears his clothing in an eyeblink.

Need you. Now.

Caspian carefully removes his finger from my ass while still gently fingering my channel and kissing my clit, bringing me down from the peak without releasing me totally from the smashing torrent of climax.

He ignores my mental entreaty, teasing me at the edge once more, pushing me to the cusp and then backing me away, again and again, until I"m nearly in a rage with desperation—but such is my trust in him that I cling to him and give myself over to him, knowing that despite saying this is "punishment" it"s really just his way of reconnecting with me, deepening our bond, mating our souls more intrinsically.

Finally, he makes his way up my body, but slowly. He nips my belly, drawing a bead of blood with his fang and licking it, sending a tiny frisson of venom through me; again, this time on my inner thigh, so close to my sex that his cheek brushes against me there—he mirrors the actions on the other side; another nip to the underside of my breast, another thin hard sharp string of venom seras through me, building upon the others, weaving and braiding together into a totality that is more than the sum of its parts; again, this time his fang creases my nipple itself, eliciting a throat-scraping scream from me, one of delightful pain becoming an indelible tattoo of furious pleasure.

"Cas—" I gasp, shaking all over, whimpering with pleasure, with the pain of being so close to yet another orgasm that it is physically excruciating in the best possible way—because I know he"ll deliver.

His fangs pierce my jugular without warning, agony morphing into ecstasy as he draws blood from me: one sip, two, three, and the rushing pull of my blood into his body is a thrill all its own, the venom exploding in full force until I'm moaning from the unbearable nirvana of sensations.

He withdraws and closes the punctures, and then his mouth closes on mine in a perfectly human kiss. I taste my blood and my sex on his tongue, his lips, his breath. I reach between our bodies and grasp his cock, finding it thick and huge and hard and hot, blooded and in full, beautiful bloom. All for me.

That elusive, instinctual part of me—the one that can manipulate magic in ways my conscious self cannot—acts up again, turning the ceiling into "down", so we settle gently against the angled plane, me beneath him.

The globules of my bloodmagic tears float around us, and he catches one in his mouth, his eyes briefly flaring with vitality light. Another, and his eyes flare again.

I caress his cock, staring into his blacked-out eyes, reading in them his love, his need, his pleasure, his desperation. I cup his balls and caress them, massage them, using my other hand to stroke his length until he"s grunting and thrusting into my hand.

The nascent orgasm he created in me regerminates, purely from the pleasure washing over me via our bloodlink.

I open myself to him, finding new nooks and crannies of my mind and my soul and shining light on them, revealing them to him. All my secrets are his. All my fears are his. All my needs are his.

The bloodlink—I feel it, see it with magical eyes, a turbulent river flowing in two directions at once. I pour magic into it, visualize it expanding, the water deepening, flowing faster. I empty myself into the river of the bloodlink, swim in its waters and erase myself until there is only us.

Physically, I am aware of us. The ceiling beneath my back and buttocks, cold and hard and somehow perfect, his blood-heated body enveloping mine in a cocoon of male muscle and scent and heat and weight. He enters me, then.

I accept him, shuddering as he fills me ever so slowly, taking a fractured eternity to glide in, and I feel each millimeter of him at a time: tip, glans, shaft, base, until he bottoms out inside me and his balls slap gently against my perineum.

Selves distort.

Somehow, I feel myself as me, and yet I'm also him.

Or, the reverse.

Words fail.

She"s a soft perfect lush heaven beneath me, her small firm proud breasts pillowed against my chest, her blood-sweet breath washing over my lips, her eyes glowing white, blinding with raw power. Her sex wraps around me, envelops me, squeezing so tight it almost hurts, beautifully. Fuck, her pussy is home. I want to ram into her as hard as I can, to dominate her as mine, but I don"t. I torture myself. I take her slowly, gently, agonizingly. I relish each inch as I withdraw, watching her lovely slender frame wracked with ecstasy as I knot her hair around my fist and kiss her throat and take a sip of blood, sending a freshet of pheromones and venom bursting through her. I pause when the very head of my cock is all that remains inside her sweet hot slick sex, and she claws at me, snarls at me, all animal now, and god I love her, god she loves me, and as much as I want to slam in deep and pour my cum into her, I want this to last, to take forever, I want to drag this out as long as I can, because I feel her, I feel us, I feel…god, god, god. I feel everything. I feel her pussy stretching around me as I slowly drive myself back into her, I feel the heat and I feel the wetness of her essence squelching softly, such a sensual, erotic sound, and I feel her—

breath as it huffs over me, sweet and coppery from my blood, and his hands are everywhere all at once: knotted in my hair and tugging my head backward to bare my throat so he can sip at my veins, and they"re fitting between us to finger my clit, sending mini-quakes of precursor climaxes shuddering through me, and he"s pinching my nipples and squeezing my ass, and I"ve lost all sense of direction. The ceiling is no longer beneath me; I feel cold glass, and then we bump off a counter, carom off the fridge, and then—

Take us to bed, Mae.

I see our bed, a wide expanse of white sheets and dark blankets, rumpled and unmade, and I scoop up magic and send it out through us both and into the world. Soft cool sheets surround us, and warm blankets descend over us, and Caspian is above me and all around me, and I can still feel him within me, metaphysically; I feel his pleasures as if they were my own. I squeeze around his cock, and I feel it myself. I undulate against him and squeeze—I almost come, because he almost does. I slip a finger against my clit, and when a riptide of sensation coruscates through me, he shudders and has to fight off orgasm.

We relinquish all control, then.

We move together, seeking union, seeking orgasm. I feel us together, his pleasure and mine, a kind of oneness perhaps unique in all of humankind and history.

How long, then? Ten seconds? An hour? I have no way of knowing. All I know is perfect pleasure, the rawest love.

When the moment of climax comes, we throw ourselves into it mind and body, as one.

I feel him throb inside me, and I feel myself buried deep inside her, and my whole body shakes and shudders as orgasm detonates inside me and my pussy clamps around him and pulsates wildly, and I can only let go, can only let myself explode inside her bare slick wet heat and I feel her come around me and her scream in my ear, feel her heart slamming in her chest and he comes and he comes and he comes, and I weep, delirious with pure joy, as his cum floods me in wave after wave, and the concussive power of his pleasure shakes my whole being and I weep harder, overcome and still coming.

And then…

A new sensation.

Neither pleasure nor pain.

It"s a burst of distilled energy, and it is centered upon my womb.

We are united, mind, body, and soul, and we are being wracked by orgasm, and yet I feel this blast of energy, a shockwave radiating outward to infinity.

It shudders through us both, less a frisson and more an electrocution.

I"m breathless with orgasm, Caspian"s self still entwined with mine, and I feel us descending from the peak of orgasm together. I cradle his face against my breasts and massage his scalp and tickle his spine and play with the hard muscle of his ass, and he simply breathes and listens to my heartbeat and struggles to contain his emotions—unnecessarily, since I feel them all, and I know he feels all of mine.

After a long, long silence, he rests his chin on my chest and gazes up at me. "You"re pregnant."

I can only nod, and swallow hard around the one word lodged in my throat. Eventually, I get it out. "Yes."

He blinks a few times, but bloodtears trickle down anyway. "I can still feel you, Maeve. Whatever you did, it"s not going away. I"m glad, but…I know you feel the way I do."

"Joy," I whisper. "And also fear."

"When a vaer and vampire have a baby, what will it be like?" he asks.

I can only shake my head, and attempt a shrug. "I…I don"t know. No one knows. There"s no way to know. Most immortals don"t even know about me."

"You think they felt that?" His eyes have returned to normal.

"We have to assume they did."

This changes everything…again.This is Alistair"s voice, and now we both hear it at once.

I don"t know if I should congratulate you two or call you irresponsible,Stirling says. Either way, Alistair is absolutely right. This changes everything.

You guys are fuckin" nuts,is all Fin says.

If the council and the tribunal were anxious to capture you before,Alistair says, they"re going to be positively rabid, now.

A chime sounds—not physical, from a doorbell, but rather an ethereal tinkling from everywhere and nowhere at once.

"I think that means Andreas is back," I say. "If it was Enforcers or Elites, I don"t think the wards would make that nice, cute little sound."

"Agreed," Caspian says. "Either way, we probably should get dressed."

We do so—Caspian has to get clean clothes from his closet because I have no idea where I sent the ones he was wearing. Mere seconds after we"re both decent, Andreas bursts into the living room, panting, sweating, and looking immensely depleted of vitality.

"We have to go—NOW. I don"t know what you two just fucking did, but it triggered one hell of a response. A joint task force of Elites and Enforcers appeared in the middle of the road not four blocks from here. They don"t know exactly where you are, yet—but it won"t take them long to find my wards at the very least, if not your specific signature." he eyes us both, his gaze intense and scrutinizing. "What did you do?"

His gaze rakes over me, and I blush, because it feels like the truth must be written all over me.

Then to Caspian…and then he looks up.

Three globules of blood-magic tears float aimlessly near the ceiling.

He frowns at me. At the blood. "Fuck. There"s only reason they"d send a whole goddamn army after you, here, in broad daylight, in the middle of fucking Manhattan. I"m not sensitive enough of a receiver unless I'm paying attention, so I didn"t feel it, but…you"re pregnant, aren"t you?"

I swallow. Nod. "Yes."

He shakes his head. "That complicates things." He blows out a breath. "No time. You have to go, right the fuck now. You can"t fight that many, Maeve, not even you. You"d take out half the city trying and still not succeed. I saw at least one shifter and several vampires. Old ones. And if they sent that army, it"s a certainty they sent more."

"Where do we go?" I ask.

"I"ve arranged for you to meet with your grandfather. He"s in Switzerland. If you can avoid both fights and capture long enough to get to my contact in New Jersey, he can get you there undetected. You just have to get to New Jersey. Caspian, I assume you are familiar with New York?"

Caspian nods. "Yes. I"ve lived here on and off my whole life. I know the rooftops, sewers, alleys, and roads like the back of my hand."

"Then get her to this address." Andreas hands him a scrap of paper with an address scribbled on it. It"s a kind of fae safehouse. It"ll recognize her fae blood and she can let you in. If you try, Caspian, it"ll zap you so hard you"ll be out of commission for a week, and I'm not kidding." He looks at me. "This means you"ll need to be in control of your dual natures, blooded and full of vitality. Which means you"ll need to feed en route, so be careful. Glamour them to forget. It"s typically discouraged, but this is a desperate situation."

He crosses to me. "I"ll hold them off and buy you time." He grabs me in a hug, squeezing hard, and kisses my temple. "An immortal conception is a huge deal, honey. It"s a good thing. But it complicates things. So, congratulations, but be careful." He cups my faced and stares into my eyes. "I love you. I"ll find you, wherever you go."

"I love you too, Dre. We"ll be okay. We"ll make it."

He kisses my temple again and then squeezes me, and lets me go. "Get out of here. RUN. Use every trick you know. Use all your magic, all your vampire abilities."

"I will." I turn back and kiss Andreas"s rough, scratchy cheek, and then grab my bag and jog for the door.

Caspian is right behind me.

I turn back and glance at the apartment one more time.

The last thing I see is the globules of glowing blood, floating in the air, glistening, luminous.

They feel like a portent, somehow, I just wish I knew what it meant.