He dove deep, to the hilt, and a sound between a breath, a moan and a cry wrenched from her throat. She refused to close her eyes, wanting him to see, to know that she did all of this willingly. That she was giving him control, not surrendering it.
His lips curled back from sharp fangs, a crimson flicker going through the dark eyes. The pupils were expanding, taking over the whites, those traces of hellfire threading through them. As he pressed her up against the smooth mirror, she realized she couldn’t see him in any of the hundreds of reflections. It was just her, and yet she’d never felt more . . . not alone. His hand wrapped in her hair and exposed her throat. Crimson became flame in those wholly dark eyes, and then his fangs were there, sinking deep, just like his cock. Sensation exploded through every nerve ending, starting where they were joined.
That was all it took. She came hard on him, her fluids gushing over his thick length, her body wracked by convulsions as the pleasure gripped her in relentless hands, like his. He was still moving inside her, thrusting with brutal purpose, his mouth taking blood from her throat.
There was no opportunity or desire for games, no sense that she needed to prove to him that she was a Mistress, used to holding the reins. He knew all of it, knew all of her. It was frightening and thrilling at once. Handling him would be the challenge of her life.
She had no knowledge of paranormal beings, hadn’t really given them any thought, but she accepted who and what he was as if she’d always known. Her heart had been waiting for a vampire.
As Anwyn slowly surfaced from the dream, her thighs were trembling, damp, telling her that she’d climaxed. Reaching behind her, she slid her hand down Gideon’s rib cage and over the curve of his bare buttock, his thigh tucked up beneath hers. Listened to his even breathing. The third member of their uncertain triangle, he’d come five years later, to her present, whereas Daegan was currently absent, a hole in her heart she was glad she had Gideon to assuage.
He cinched his arm around her waist more securely, pressed his face in her hair, reminding her he was there, his heat and strength behind her. While she liked the tactile reminder, she didn’t need to have it to feel his presence. Ever since she’d third-marked him, he was in her very soul, and she wanted him there. At a moment like this, she almost felt balanced, for Daegan’s presence from the dream was still so close it felt as if he were in front of her, Gideon behind.
She’d hold on to the peace the temporary illusion gave her in sleeping hours, because peace was a far more rare commodity when she faced the reality of what she’d become. A vampire, turned against her will, infected by a schizophrenic sire with unpredictable seizures and dangerous surges of bloodlust. A vampire who might never have full control of her life again, who was dependent on a vampire hunter who’d become her third-marked servant by accident, and a powerful vampire she blamed for not being there when she’d needed him.
At least when she met Daegan in her dreams, she didn’t carry the burden of his betrayal. The thousand small angers that had culminated in his leaving. In her dreams, she was allowed to simply miss him, and wish he’d come back. The insidious shadow creatures in her brain that sometimes followed her into her dreams had no power when he was there, which made his presence all the more welcome.
Every waking moment required her to accept her deepest fear. Her control, cultivated carefully over a lifetime, could now be scattered like bowling pins. The schizophrenic mood shifts brought rages, delusions and hungers. They swamped her systems and turned her into a force of destruction. Such episodes could come at any time. Some days it was every few hours. Occasionally she had the peace of a full day without one.
The fledgling bloodlust was a whole different ballgame from the seizures. The seizures were a physical ravagement of her systems, a mind-shrieking session of crazy, murderous madness. With bloodlust, she would have what she wanted, and anything that stood in her way was fair game. Now that Gideon was a third-mark servant, she had less fear of harming him irreparably, but she was grateful she’d fallen in with