Chapter 9

“Damien! Damien, wait!”

She launched herself at his back before he could cross the threshold. Her hands hit his shoulders, her chest slamming into his back as she wrapped her arms around him. Her eyes stung with tears, tears of such sudden relief she could hardly breathe.

Damien closed his eyes, a pained expression flitting over his features as he reached to enfold one of the hands grasping him. He struggled within himself for a long minute as she clung to him with such desperate need. He wanted to stay. More than anything. But she had so many doubts. He could not bear it if he caused them both a great deal of pain simply because he could not bring himself to be patient and to do the right thing.

“Syreena …” he argued hoarsely.

“No! You are right. It is my choice! No one can make it for me. Not even parts of myself. All I know is that I cannot bear for you to leave me with a totality of being I have never experienced before in all of my life. Every grain of life inside of me protests it. Damien, please …”

Damien turned slowly, letting her push herself into the entire length of his body, although the intimacy of the contact was so taxing to his strength of will.

“And ten minutes from now, you will doubt me all over again,” he whispered into her hair.

“No. No, I won’t.”

“You cannot be sure of that.”

“Yes, I can! Yes, Damien, I can.”

She reached for both of his hands quickly, bringing them up her body until his fingers were resting around her throat.

His touch fell on precious metal, gold and moonstones, the necklace that was her badge of royalty.

Damien understood her intent immediately.

There was mysticism attached to these remarkable pieces of Lycanthrope jewelry. They were capable of always fitting the wearer, no matter what shape or form they were in, transforming as they did. But more significantly, no one knew the secret to how to remove it. The legend of the jewelry said that there was only one way it could ever be removed.

By the hand of the royal’s one true mate.

“If it is meant to be, your touch will tell me so.”

“I see,” he said softly. “So you cannot decide after all. You must once again depend on something outside of yourself.”

Damien tried not to feel the painful disappointment that shuddered through him, but it was too strong and too encompassing. He pulled away from her, a bit forcefully under the might of his emotion, and pushed her hard from himself.

“Grow up, little girl,” he snapped as his temper reeled out of rein. “Until you do, do not torment me with your teasing and empty pledges. Despite rumors to the contrary, even my heart is sensitive.”

With that, he violently morphed into the form of the raven and left her.

Shocked into paralysis, her numb fingers still on her throat where she had led him to touch her, Syreena stood unmoving and unfeeling for a moment. Then she was overwhelmed with pain. Unable to control her own body a second longer, she collapsed onto the floor of her bedroom.

“Elijah, this is not like her at all,” Siena said worriedly.

The giant blond man reached out to stop his wife’s jittery pacing, drawing her curvaceous body into his, nuzzling her neck where her collar usually was when they were outside of their bedroom. In her unceasing worry over the well-being of her young sister, Siena had forgotten her badge of office that day.

It allowed him the advantage of exploiting the spot on her throat that he knew was terribly sensitive for her. He could always distract her with a kiss in that place. It worked, a pleased sigh leaving her as she cuddled voluntarily closer to him. He smiled against the sweet scent of her neck.

“Kitten, you need to stop worrying about a woman who is over one hundred years old.”

“She could be a thousand years old, Elijah, and she will still be my sister.”

Elijah knew that, and regretted making it sound otherwise, but he felt as though Siena was overprotective of the Princess, who was obviously able to care for herself. Unfortunately, since Ruth had harmed Syreena, Siena had been even more concerned with her sister’s safety and soundness of mind.

“You know I didn’t argue that,” he admonished her gently. She could read his thoughts, so he knew this was true. “Syreena is entitled to her privacy and her pouts just as any of us are. The last time you tromped through the house in a fit, she was wise enough to give you space. You need to respect her in kind and trust her to come around to you when she needs you.”

“I do,” she argued.

“You don’t. You expect her to advise you, but she never lets you advise her, and that puts you out. So you simply hand out commands and instructions and stick your pert little nose where it probably does not belong.”

“Elijah!”

“Siena, if I was going to lie to you, I would make a terrible husband. Who can fearlessly tell a queen her faults, if not her mate?”

Siena released a signature growl of frustration, trying to push him away so she could be vexed without the warmth of his comfortable body to distract her from it. But moving him was like trying to move a mountain. He didn’t budge unless he wanted to.

“Don’t sulk, kitten,” he murmured close to her ear.

“Stop trying to charm me when I am mad at you!”

“I have no charm, sweetheart. You know that.”

“You are nothing but a bully. You always have been.” Her accusation had no punch, however, because she laid her cheek against his shoulder and easily stopped trying to fight him for the sake of her temper. “I am lost without her, Elijah. She is always the steady and practical voice in my ear.”

“There is another voice now, kitten,” he reminded her. “And Syreena must be free to go her own way. The days of locking her up in safety are long past. I know you realize that.”

“But—”

“Siena,” he scolded.

“Elijah, she is so sad. I feel it with every fiber of my soul. And I know it is somehow Damien’s doing. I want to find him and beat the sense out of him!”

Elijah understood her frustration all too well. He glanced over the edge of the balcony in which they stood, looking down at the Princess who was sitting in sad solitude in a lonely alcove, below and across from where they stood. Syreena had been inconsolable over the past couple of days. Though she showed no obvious emotion, there was no spark of interest or concern within her for anything but her own thoughts. He was aware that Siena had even tried to fabricate concerns, trying to draw her out in the role of advisor at the very least. Siena’s sister had merely put her Queen off, claiming to be unwell, busy elsewhere, or any other convenient excuse she could think of to go sit in her own company.

The warrior tried not to be angry with the Princess for the distress she was causing his wife. The problem was more Siena’s than it was Syreena’s, as he had already pointed out to her. Still, when she hurt, it hurt him. It was the nature of the way they were mated. He could accept that one slight flaw, though, because of all the benefits that also came with such a depth of connection.

He had been tempted to approach Damien himself several times. Just for the sake of understanding. Or, perhaps, it was because Siena wished for it so vehemently. Sometimes her desires were so powerful, he could mistake them for his own. The reverse was also true. So he maintained his ideals about the situation, hoping the sensibility of it would eventually rub off on her.

“I would not bet the castle on it,” she retorted tartly.

Elijah chuckled at her, pressing an affectionate kiss into her sprung-up hair.

“I am hopeful, Siena, not an idiot,” he informed her with amusement.

Jasmine ran absent fingers over the spines of books, slowly reading what titles she could, looking for something, anything, to help her in her search.

Her home was in turmoil because its master was equally so. Though he was far more adamant about keeping the matter to himself this time around, Jasmine was almost positive he had faced some sort of rejection at the whim of the Lycanthrope Princess.

Damn her to hell anyway, Jasmine thought with easy venom.

Damien was not used to being gainsaid, nor was he accustomed to the rejection of a woman. Considering the hope and unusual idealism the Prince was investing in the ungrateful chit, Jasmine imagined it was all the more painful and scarring to the male Vampire’s ego to be rejected.

Without knowing why this had come to pass in so unsatisfactory a manner, she was left to guess. In her concern for Damien’s well-being, even though she was convinced the little snob did not deserve him, Jasmine had to find proof without prejudice to support her Prince’s pursuit of the foreign baggage he had taken such a fancy to. It was the only way to rectify the situation. If Jasmine could prove that Damien’s theories were couched in fact, then the shapechanger would have to at least listen and consider the possibilities.

She only wished that she could read faster.

Damien walked his dark gardens, his thoughts deeply fixated on a frustrating woman half the world away from him. She may as well have been sitting in his lap whispering her doubts and insecurities into his ear over and over again. He had not hunted once since he had last seen her, and the cold of his body matched the ice coating his soul. As distracted as he was by thoughts and emotion, it would not be wise to walk the world and expose himself to the innumerable dangers that could await him. He would end up getting himself killed if he was not careful.

As it was, he was aware of powerful presences flitting too close to his home and territory. They were Vampires, two of them, and they were lurking in wait for an opportunity to confront him. Normally he would have faced them down immediately, but he was uninterested and disinclined to do so at the moment. Let them come and take their chances, he thought wearily. What did he live for, but to amuse the occasional embodiment of avarice? Let them covet his position, his grounds, and his home if they liked.

They could have it all, for all he cared in that moment. Jasmine would be fine on her own. She had told him more than enough times that she did not need him to protect her or advise her. She had been telling the truth of it. He had probably been using her as an excuse to remain aboveground for these many decades. He had needed her far more than she had ever needed him.

Which seemed to be a running theme in the women he was attracting of late.

Damn her.

It had been well over two nights since he had left her. In all this time, she still could not make a choice? Why should that surprise him, he asked himself. She had not made a free choice for herself in her entire life. It might well take another one hundred years before she would be able to figure out how.

And he would be damned if he was going to sit around waiting for her.

Not in a way that would continue to be as painful as this was proving to be.

On some level, Damien was aware of his affectations, their causes and the logic to them. However, the harder he tried to reason himself out of his despair, the worse it seemed to become. He was thwarted by the catch-22 of needing something beyond all reason, and needing that something to have a reason for being with him beyond her ability to reason.

It made no sense, and yet all the sense in the world. It was the only truth he wanted to hear. He was deaf to all others.

Unaccustomed to this depth of feeling, Damien was floundering. That, he supposed, was because he was doing the opposite of what he had done all of his life. He was acting against instinct. His inner compass pointed back to Russia, yearning to go to Syreena and make her understand what it would mean to her to choose him. Why could he not be satisfied with her logic? It would get him what he wanted, just not the way he wished to get it. What did it matter, if the end result was the same?

But it would not be the same, and it was instinct that told him that as well. If he manipulated her choice, coerced her decision, he would leave her too much room for doubt. If she could not believe in him now, she would not believe in him in the long run. He was positive that everything inside Syreena was screaming for him, just as he cried out for her. Yet she fought herself and resisted and stumbled around waiting for someone to tell her what the right choice was.

In her heart and soul, she should already know.

Like he knew.

If she wanted guarantees, she would find them only inside herself. He had already said all he could on the matter. But apparently that was not enough for her. And why should it be? She did not trust herself, never mind anyone else.

Damien made his way to the bench that had become like a second home for him. He straddled the cold stone and sat down, gripping the edge of the seat in tight, icy hands as he turned toward the wind blowing with wintry chill off the ocean.

He was tired and weakening. He was aware of this. Soon he would be forced to either snap himself out of his gloom, or he would have to go to ground, hiding himself from the above world. It was the only way he could survive. If he remained in this state, it was only a matter of time before someone challenged him. In his present condition, he had little hope of winning.

Let them take it all while he slept protected in the earth. Syreena’s indecision might be killing him slowly, but he would be damned if he would let his greedy brethren pick over the bones.

Let them have it.

It meant very little anymore.

When Damien woke hours later, it was to find himself looking up into a sky pinking with the dawn.

He sat up quickly, realizing suddenly that he had fallen asleep on the stone garden bench. As he did so, he faced the full force of the rising sun. He flinched hard, throwing up a hand to protect his eyes even as they began to sting with painful tears from the exposure. A couple of days ago, while at peak strength, he could have born this early breach of sunlight. In his weakened state, it was another story entirely.

He cursed himself for his carelessness and struggled to his feet while protecting his exposed skin with the turn of his body. He turned to hurry back to the house, his need for protective shade quite sharp in his mind and on his skin.

Then, as if deciding the entire thing was a trick of mind over matter, he stopped all progress toward shelter.

He dropped his hands slowly and turned back toward the growing sunrise. He realized then what a beautiful thing the deadly sun could be. It, too, was a predator of sorts. Only it was at the top of every food chain. It fed on everything. The sun gobbled up the darkness with a quick and gluttonous appetite. Then it nibbled or chomped at Nightwalkers as if they were dessert. It sapped the energy from Demons, it made Lycanthropes blister and boil as essential nutrients were violently withdrawn from their bodies.

For him, it would nibble at his flesh in bit-by-bit burns, until he truly was nothing but ashes and dust, devoid of water, blood, and life of any kind.

“Damien, what are you doing?”

Jasmine grabbed at the Prince, panic flying over her with the wild, galvanizing need for action. She was more than powerful enough to force Damien to her will while he was in this state of lethargy. She seized him and dragged him with blinding speed into the manse, behind the safety of strongly tinted windows and tightly drawn drapes.

Out of immediate danger, she turned more gentle, helping Damien find a seat on a large sofa before a cold fireplace. Once he was seated, she dropped to her knees in front of him, wedging them between his ankles as she clasped his cold hands in hers with a grip of fearful anger and concern.

“Damien, she is not worth this! No woman is worth your life! Youcould have been killed. Please … I am begging you to stop hurting yourself like this.”

The attention he turned to her was only half there, the distance in his eyes telling her how unreachable some of the most integral parts of himself truly were. It was as though this silly woman had stolen the heart out of him. He was grieving, and she felt it keenly from him. So much so that her perception of it nearly drove the usually serene Vampire to tears.

“Damien,” she cried in a whispered, hitching voice.

Jasmine threw her arms around his neck, hugging him as hard as she could, consoling him as she assured herself that he was safe and alive. She realized she could not leave him again. It was too dangerous. That, however, was only a temporary stopgap. If he did not hunt, Damien would fall into torpor. It would only take another couple of days for that to happen. Since she had never experienced the other side of the equation, Jasmine was overwhelmed with understanding of what she had put Damien through each of the several times she had fallen into it herself.

He was so cold to the touch, and it added to the chill his mental state was leaving on her soul. If she could be in a room with that thoughtless, coldhearted bitch of a Lycanthrope for two minutes, then Damienwould truly have something to grieve for. Jasmine wanted to kill her.

The passion of the thought was so strong that Jasmine’s fangs appeared with aggression and hostility. She made an angry vocalization, rocking her beloved friend in consolation still, in spite of her naked outrage.

“Damien,” she murmured into his ear, her fingers stroking down the back of his head and his braid. “You must feed. Come,” she coaxed softly, drawing back her hair as she settled his mouth to her neck. She had fed herself only an hour before dawn, so the scent of the hunt and the heat of the prey’s blood she had taken were still evocatively fresh. “Let me sustain you,” she pleaded in his ear.

Damien was only dimly aware of any appeal her offering might have. Therefore, it was easy for him to turn away. He had no appetite, no desire to experience the feelings that accompanied a feed, especially that from a female.

Even if it was Jasmine.

He pried himself out of her grasp, discarding her invitation as he stood on his feet and stepped over her kneeling form.

Without a word, he left her. He retired to his chambers where he would sleep the rest of the day until darkness moved over the world again.

The first thing to penetrate Damien’s sleeping senses was the gentle scent of lavender.

It shocked him out of the depths of sleep and he sat up with a sudden movement, twisting around so he could see the entire room.

In the night of the room, he could see the shape of a vase near his bed, and it was full of fresh flowers and branches, including heather and lavender.

His heart sank along with his unexpected, and now crushed, hope, and in a fit of rage he grabbed the offending vessel and threw it across the room. The glass burst, sending water and blossoms everywhere.

Was he so awful a creature that she could not possibly reconcile herself to spending a lifetime with him? That she could not even bear to try? Was this the ultimate trick of fate? He had committed a long list of sins in his many years, so maybe this was the ebb of a painful karma he must suffer.

Damien growled dangerously, warning the outer forces of the world to back off him. Hadn’t he compensated for his flaws as best he could through the centuries? How many lives had he saved, how many improved, because of his careful interference and selection? He had lost count long before he had saved the life of the English queen who had lived to reign with remarkable strength for nearly seventy years. He had always thought that the gifts of the Elizabethan Renaissance had been an extraordinary contribution to the development of the human race. It was an era that might never have existed had the Queen died of smallpox that year he had met her.

Was there no karma for those things? Was there no angel of mercy and appreciation flying around him now, acknowledging that he had committed dozens of such integral acts, and now it was time that he experience the peace of a thriving renaissance full of freedom, unimagined beauty, and, most of all, love?

He had never believed Vampires to be the demons they were commonly thought to be, but if dwelling in the depths of hell made him a fiend, then a monster he most definitely was, because this existence could only be described as unadulterated hell.

His pique of temper had only made the spread of the scent of lavender worse within his bedroom, he realized after a moment. He got out of bed, throwing aside the sheets that had become snarled around him as he had slept fitfully. He strode across the room to his wardrobe, determined to dress and force himself to hunt that night. Perhaps force was not even necessary. As his emotions elevated, his desire for a savage stalking rose in equal measure. It was dangerous to hunt by emotion alone, but at that point, he did not care. It was better to risk his life trying to regain his health than it was to drift further into the self-serving pity he was dwelling in as if he would make a permanent home of it.

But first, he thought as he pulled on a pair of slacks with jerks of driven irritation, first he was going to burn those cursed flowers and get that scent out of his house.

Damien did not even grab a shirt as he angrily turned to do just that.

And nearly knocked over Syreena in the process.

He automatically reached to steady her, his hand closing on her arm around her bare bicep. He felt himself immediately drawn in by the soft texture of her skin and the amazing sculpture of the sure muscle beneath. She was so warm, especially compared to him. Through the shadows of the night and the room, he could see her strange eyes, especially the gray one, looking at him as if she could see right through to his back.

Damien was stunned that she was even there. However, his recent bout with false hope only minutes ago had jaded any chance of him feeling that optimism again. And in spite of his surprise, he was still quite livid. Since she was the source of it, he took no pleasure in seeing her.

Or so he told himself.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded coldly. “Come to torture your pitiful suitor with your vacillations and neverending questioning of his intentions?”

“No,” she said, her dulcet voice alien in the harsh emotion filling the room as it emanated from him.

“Go home, Syreena,” he said roughly, failing as he tried to keep the emotion out of his voice. “I do not have the answers you are looking for.”

“Damien …”

Damn her, he hated it when she spoke his name. She always said it in such a way, in such a tone, that she could turn his nerves inside out upon themselves. It was unfair that she could provoke a response in him when she was so clearly cold to him in return. In spite of her earlier responses to him physically, she had proven to be frigid toward him when it truly counted.

“Do not say another word,” he warned her, holding up a hand in a sharp gesture that made her jump in her own skin a fraction of an inch. “You have had three days and nights to speak to me, Syreena, and your opportunity is gone.”

Or it will be, he thought vehemently, as soon as I can get away from her and get some fresh, revitalizing warmth into my system.

Syreena understood why he was angry with her. He was right, after all. She had spent days balancing on the edge of a choice.

A choice, she had suddenly realized, that was never truly a matter of selection.

It was what Damien had seemed to know from the start. The only choice she could make was to ignore the demands of her heart and her spirit, both of which she had tried to ignore no matter how loudly they had screamed at her. In truth, there was no choice.

She was meant to be his, and he was meant to be hers.

She had searched day after day for outside proof of this, only to realize that there was none, and never would be. The proof was stamped in the desires of her soul. It was the instinct that had been born in her, flipped on like a switch, the moment it had flipped on as brilliantly in him.

Only he had seen the light, and she had been blinded by it.

“Damien,” she protested gently, needing to tell him that she understood now. She comprehended all he had been trying to say, as well as understanding exactly how much he had accepted on faith and feeling while she had floundered around and caused him what must have been an unbearable agony of the heart. If she had been in pain these three days, then he had been in torment.

“I said you are not to speak to me!” he snarled in sudden temper, coming so close to her with his violent emotion that she took a reflexive step back.

Then she rethought the action, and shifted her weight back onto her forward foot. She bumped into his aggressive, imposing body as he towered in justifiable outrage.

Damien faltered when she did not give way, instead insinuating herself into his personal space. Her warmth, scent, and presence invaded him like a virus, all the familiar symptoms of reflexive need and desire unfurling along the planes of his form that were closest to her. She raised her hands, the flats of her palms toward him, reaching to touch him on his bare skin over his chest. Like a whip, his hand shot out and grabbed one of her wrists painfully, twisting it and her hand back in order to force her to change her mind about coming into contact with him.

She winced in pain, made a sound in reflection of it, and then turned her gaze up to his glare.

“You can break it if you like. It will not deter me,” she told him softly.

She touched his cold skin with her other hand, immediately catching a shiver up her arm. Damien caught the reaction and gave her a bitter smile.

“I have not hunted since I left you. I do not suppose you are offering me a dinner date, are you? As you can see, I could use a little warming up. One woman or another will not make a difference to me.”

“Are you so certain of that?” she countered quietly.

“I am positive of it. Your blood could warm me, Syreena, but my heart would stay just as cold to you as it does this moment.”

“Very well.”

She swung her head to one side, flinging back her hair until her collar glinted in the darkness. What shone even more luminescent, however, was the pale line of her throat, which she offered up to him with closed eyes and a stretch of her body.

Instead of the touch of his mouth, however, it was his forceful hand that closed around her neck. She released a strangled gasp as her eyes flew open.

“What are you, insane?” he hissed in accusation as he jerked on her wrist in his anger. “If you want to play with fire, Princess, I suggest you go find another flame. I’m not biting, if you will forgive the pun.”

“Why not? It’s just another feed, right? You have a demand; I have a supply. It is a simple logic.”

“Logic?” Always, always logic with her. Always practical, everything with clear and tidy directions and explanations. “Logic dictates that when a Vampire is this livid, Princess, that you best hightail it out of the county lest he rip out your throat!”

“So much bark, so little bite,” she observed tauntingly.

Damien had half a mind to show her just how much bite a Vampire could have when he was uncontrolled. It did not help that he was already suffering from all too clear memories of her taste, the richness of her extraordinary flavor and its effect on his systems. He had likened the experience to a drug in his mind several times, and he was beginning to realize he was fast becoming an addict.

Damien pivoted, slamming Syreena up against the wardrobe so hard that she lost her equilibrium. The room spun around her, making her quite dizzy. She tried to get purchase with her feet, but the bare floor was too smoothly polished to provide traction for her bare toes, and he was holding her up too high for her to touch the ground with her heels.

It did not matter a moment later, because the full weight of his large, powerful body was crushing her back against the solid piece of furniture a moment later. It was a punishment, not an embrace, but she could not help feeling as if she were being rewarded all the same. As chill as he was, the shape and feel of him, especially in this wild aggression, was a mighty stimulant to her senses, which had been so starved for him. It did not even bother her that his hand was restricting her breathing. She should have balked, considering her recent experiences at Ruth’s hands, but the truth of the matter was that no matter how hard he railed and bullied at her, she was not afraid of him. She knew he would never be capable of hurting her.

That had been the whole point to all of her recent revelations.

He could never hurt her. Not physically, not psychically, not emotionally. Not even when she had so clearly hurt him in all three ways. In spite of his roughness, his coarse words, and his raging, nothing he had done had hurt her.

Now she had to make up for not being as gentle with him.

She fought him for the first time, twisting her wrist free with lightning speed while she wrapped her leg around his left knee. She straightened her leg hard, collapsing the structure of the brace of his legs. He fell to the desired side, and she made sure she followed him down.

Damien’s backside hit the floor, and then, as her falling weight struck him, his shoulders went down onto the polished wood. As he moved to brace his feet, her bottom settled across his hips, and her hand went to his throat. She successfully pinned him in place with remarkable skill and strength. Even in his weakened state, it was quite an accomplishment to best him in such a way.

Before he could say a word, before he could move a muscle to attempt to throw her off him, she pushed his face aside and leaned forward across his chest. It exposed his neck to the strike of her mouth.

She had learned well, he realized as the warmth and dampness of her mouth closed over him in the most stimulating place available in that erogenous zone. It was a shock to his cold systems, all that warmth, but not as much of a surprise as the bite of her teeth that followed.

Damien fought the answering response of his body with the entirety of his will. He would not fall for this trick twice. He would not allow her to manipulate him whenever she wanted to, only to change her mind again later and leave him reeling and hurting. She already had too much power over him, and he would not allow her to have any more.

He reached up and grabbed her by almost the whole of her hair, squeezing his fist around the tendrils, which immediately began to squirm for escape. She gasped, breaking off her contact with his throat to lean her head back.

Only he had expected her to sit up away from him in the process. Instead, the arch brought her entire torso flush to his and caused her long throat to flash its pulse at him with tempting flirtation. It was different this time because it had not been by her design. The truth of the matter was he could not shut himself off from the effect she had on him.

Angry, with himself as well as her, he pried her clingy body off his, literally throwing her across the polished floor. She skidded nearly the entire length of the room, the friction burning her skin at several points. She sat up, trying to shake her head on straight as he scrambled to his feet.

“Stop making a fool of yourself, Syreena! You are a princess, for the love of—!”

“Oh, now all of a sudden that is important?” she barked back at him, gaining her feet and stalking right back over to him. Her approach was so volatile and aggressive that Damien was afraid she would find a way to touch him again. He did not know if he could bear much more of that, so he backed up in the path of her advance.

Until he hit the wall, at least.

The minute she had him cornered, she reached to thrust insistent fingers into the hair at the back of his head, and as she pulled him down, she thrust her body up against his.

She was able to capture his mouth.

Syreena did not kiss him for long, just with a hard seriousness that was sure to invade his senses and his memory in the quickest way possible. She broke away from him, placed her fingertips on his chest, and raked her nails down his bare skin with barely repressed violence.

He roared in outrage and pain, and then found himself glued to her mouth once more. She worked the kiss hard and hot and with unbelievable aggression. Damien’s entire world began to reel as he was assaulted by all the stimuli she was using to bombard him. He quickly found himself struggling along the border of those sides of himself which were civilized, and those which were not.

For a minute, he could not remember that he had taught her how to kiss. She was working on an instinct that had nothing to do with what they had learned together. It was wild and intoxicating, raping him of his will and his resistance just as she knew it would. She pulled him by his hair to break him away from her mouth, and he made a strangled sound that crossed between regret for her suddenly absent lips and fury for her assertive abuse.

Then she slapped him so hard that his head almost turned completely backward on his neck.

This time, when he sprang back to look at her, it was with a roar, a violent flash of aggressive fangs and raging attitude. He grabbed her with an animalistic snarl, flipping their positions against the wall with a slam of their connected bodies. She made a sound as the air rushed from her lungs, but it was clearly one of satisfaction and not protest.

She had pushed him where she had wanted him.

Too far.

Beyond thought, beyond pain, beyond the ability to do anything but act on the instincts he so heavily depended on. It was the only way she figured to make any progress with him. She needed the naked emotions and reactions. It was the only way to cut through the stubborn anger he was shielding himself with.

She witnessed her overwhelming success when he nearly wrenched her head off her neck in his blind bid to expose her vulnerable pulse.

His teeth were in and out of her skin in a flash, her blood pulsing hotly over his lips and tongue. The minute the feeding began, she knew he would not stop until he made up for the starvation he had suffered the past three days. He was beyond coherent thought, she knew, and nothing could change that once her potent blood began to fill his needs.

She reached for his clenched hands and put them on her body, bearing the bracing chill of them as she dragged them over her warm skin. She led him to her breasts, gasping raggedly as the cold contacted her nipples, making them contract in immediate response.

The feel of her hot skin, and then the sudden fullness of her breasts pressing into his hands, penetrated the haze of his hunger with a sharp, spearing intensity. It combined with the erotic narcotic of her chemistry sweeping over his tongue, wrenching his body into a new awareness and a brutal form of arousal that started from the inside and exploded outward. As his hands flowed over the flesh she had boldly invited him to, she groaned on a hitching breath near his ear.

As he was swept up in the spinning awareness that swirled through him, his hands split direction over her wonderfully soft skin. One hand remained at her left breast, feeling the weight and warmth of her, understanding that he had wanted to cradle her in this way for so long it seemed like he had been born with the craving. The other hand skimmed her breastbone and defined abdomen, sweeping wide around her ribs until he was coasting down over her hip, her sweetly rounded backside, and down to a slender, powerful thigh. He traced the line back, but on a totally different path, the feel of her bleeding sensation into him like sound vibrations that tripped across every nerve.

As his hand roamed her body in bold sweeping motions, she felt it warming and then superheating in temperature. She slinked against him, clinging to both his hands and his body in every way she could manage. All the while, the persistent sucking of his mouth was making her wild with shivers of delight and liquid with heat that could not be bled from her no matter how deeply he drank. Syreena reached to stroke her hands up his chest, her nails safely retracted this time because she just wanted him to feel her touching him as thoroughly as possible. His skin was smooth and incredibly firm, the coolness of it fading in increments with every searching stroke she visited against it.

It was an amazing experience in contrasts to feel him go from empty chill, to blushing warmth, to flowering heat. Better yet, her entire bare body was sharing in the swirling changes in temperature as it slid against him like poured water. Her fingers and palms heavily traced the etching of his musculature, starting on his chest and working out in wide, sweeping circles. His body was incredibly fit, firm and smooth, and the more she touched him, the more she craved him. The Lycanthrope Princess made it clear that she could not get enough of touching her Prince. When she had covered his bare skin twice, her hands slid down his spine and over the waistband of his slacks. Her fingertips traced the taut curve of his backside and the flex of his tightly braced thighs as far as she could without breaking the contact of his mouth drawing on her throat.

Damien felt as though she had lit him on fire. Between the work of his mouth and the work of her eager hands, he was consumed in flame. Her hands flowed forward, bracketing his hips, and then her fervent fingers slid deeply into the pockets of his pants, her palms turned toward his body. The moment she touched him through the thin fabric, he lurched into her light little body and sank his teeth into her a second time.

Syreena gasped as a familiar burn flowed through her neck, and an unfamiliar heat penetrated to her curious hands. He was massively aroused, a bold and thrusting hardness that begged for her touch. She slipped free of the confining pockets and, drawing back the waistband of his pants by a belt loop, she slipped an ambitious hand down the softly furred path of his lower belly.

Damien finally lifted his mouth from her, his head snapping back into an arch as he groaned with the magnitude of pleasure that her touch closing around him delivered. It was as if her touch were sweet venom, and this time she was the one who had struck quickly. An answering pulse of fresh heat and arousal pumped through him, and his hand closed with convulsive intensity on her squirming body. Between the explorations and the feeding, they were both lost in a heady high of sensation.

Damien and Syreena suddenly slid down the wall, landing in a twisted combination of hands and bodies. Syreena snaked herself around him in every way she could manage, and it was almost all Damien could manage just to help her by holding on to her.

He had craved her for too long, wanted her so much. Now she was invading him both inside and out, working a wicked feminine magic that could never have a measure. Damien reached to free himself from his clothing, finding her hands helping him as he slid free of the restrictive slacks, eventually allowing him to kick them away.

She was on her back, beneath his weight, and welcoming him to lie heavily against her. She slid her legs around him, pulling him down onto the center of her body, scraping her fingers through his beard as she reached to caress his ears and neck and back. She reached for him with her mouth, finding him more than eager to comply with her demand for a kiss. He was burning up with heat now, all of it hers in one form or another, and he was reeling with the sear of it. He felt her with every inch of his being as he scorched her in return with a violently passionate kiss. She was gasping for air in breathless little bursts that hummed down his spine.

He let her breathe, sliding down her sinful form until his mouth was coasting over every inch of her lavender-scented skin. He laved shoulders and neck, the insides of both wrists and elbows, and a path across her delicious belly. He briefly nipped at her hips on each side, then traveled a voracious track back up her rolling stomach and the ledge of her rapidly heaving rib cage. He suddenly shot out to catch her nipple between his teeth, sucking her with a deep, new hunger that made her squirm in shocking delight.

His work at her breast bordered on savage. She felt the telltale scrape of super-sharp fangs, the swirl of his tongue teasing her against the exposed canines in an astoundingly sensual stroke. She cried out, her hands gripping his shoulders as she moved in wild response.

Hmm, someone’s a little on the kinky side.

The thought flitting through her mind in his deep, speculative voice made her laugh in blind joy.

“Damien,” she uttered hoarsely. “Forgive me. Please …”

Damien closed his eyes briefly, then kissed her breastbone up to the little hollow in her throat. He lifted his head and looked down into her eyes. They were a combination of great passion and great anxiety. He could smell the adrenaline on her, the scent heady under the lavender.

“And if I do not forgive you, Syreena?”

“Then just make love to me,” she whispered, half in pain, half in pleading. “Even if it will ever be just this once. I don’t care anymore. I just know what I want, and I want you.”

“What part of me, sweetling?” he asked as he shifted forward against her, pushing so that he slid hot and hard through the slippery moisture just outside of the sanctuary that so impatiently awaited him. “This part?”

“Damien!” she gasped, the upward arch of her questing body returning his naughty caress measure for measure.

Damien clenched his teeth shut on a deep groan that shuddered violently out of him. He braced a hand on the floor, grasped her thigh firmly, and did the complete opposite of his intentions.

He meant to settle her down away from him, to give himself the space to hear the answers she still had not clarified for him. But he found that he could not do so. He could not leave her or remain outside of her any longer. He surged forward suddenly, sliding through a torrent of moisture and heat, pushing into devastating tightness of muscle made tighter by the unexpectedness of his breach of her body as she reacted to him. Syreena’s neck arched wildly, her shoulders half lifting from the floor as he made his remarkable invasion. She realized how little she had known or imagined about the reality of this moment. There was no describing such a thing, now or ever.

For a man with no true circulation, it was amazing how he seemed to pulse inside her. He was crafted as if to suit her needs, making their fit together a stunning lesson in the truth of fate and being two halves of a perfect whole.

“Sweet Goddess, I must have been mad,” she gasped as she writhed beneath him in blatantly honest pleasure.

Damien smiled at that, understanding the sentiment perfectly. She was precious and perfect for him, and nothing he did or felt would ever succeed in changing that.

He pushed a bit deeper into her, thrilling in both the way she felt and the way she reacted. The joining of their bodies was a bliss of perfection, and he almost could not bear to change it from exactly what it was.

Almost.

He covered her mouth, kissing her deeply and catching all the startled sounds she made as he moved in a full stroke within her. The honesty in the clutch of her hands and eager body was almost unbearable.

Almost.

Damien lost his sense of everything around him, save her and her wild little body squirming with very vocal pleasure beneath the magic he made within her. He slowly searched her for what would pleasure her the most, shifting a little higher on her when he realized it touched her just right that way.

In the beat of just three strokes, she went from unbelievable pleasure to utter ecstasy. What he was doing to her was nothing short of mysticism. Here, she thought numbly, was a true user of magic. Only he was not evil or an enemy. It was the magic of fairy stories and angels, good and sweet and clean.

And all the stronger for its purity.

Damien watched as her eyes closed and her face became a map of beautiful reaction to his every action. As his entire being locked off in cell after cell of blinding need, he knew he was about to have an experience unmeasured in his lifetime.

He loved her.

He loved her madly, and it made all the difference in the universe.

“Syreena,” he rasped hoarsely, suddenly needing to say her name. “Sweet Syreena.”

The deeper he moved into her, the more he felt like he was becoming a part of her. If someone could truly possess another person, she was doing so to him. Everything about her was blending into him, especially the unchecked squeaks and gasps of delight that came faster and faster from her. She was heading for an astonishing crescendo that he thought he could not even begin to understand. He would find out within moments that he was absolutely wrong in that assumption. They became like a single consciousness, feeling the mixture of their fervent bodies from all sides and all emotions.

Damien could no longer hold any part of himself in check. He made love to her with an untamed passion that bordered on brutality. She only encouraged him further, thrilling in the beautiful form of abuse they both needed with a zeal beyond reason and well beyond three-dimensional sanity.

Damien reached an unimaginable summit, the sudden theft of his sense and equilibrium leaving him without center or focus as he detonated into a powerful, pulsing climax. He was dimly aware of vocalizing ferociously, and of her matching exclamation as she imploded with ecstasy. She seemed to be a vortex, a Vampire in and of herself, drinking from him this time with her hungry, sucking body. He was her prey, and delightfully so. She could drain him dry for all he cared. Now and in the future. He had hardly known her when he knew he would lay down his life for her.

Damien finally fell against her with a disbelieving groan. Her power over him was complete. If he had not been lost before, he certainly was now. She panted hard and heavy beneath him, still floating somewhere between completion and consciousness. That familiar limpness wended up through her arms, and he felt her touch fall away as her overtaxed body swirled into a half-conscious state.

He recalled that he had no way of knowing what other ramifications there would be, so he took the opportunity to draw them both up from the floor. He smiled as she lolled against him with a sound of postcoital delight. He tucked her into his bed, sliding in after her immediately. He could not remember ever being this warm in all of his life, and he did not want to shed any of the heat too soon.

Damien turned her so her back was to him, and then drew her securely to his chest. He wrapped a tight, possessive arm across her waist. Not that he thought she would, but just in case, she would not be able to go anywhere without him knowing about it.