Dark Side of the Moon (28 page)

He moved farther up her body to recapture her lips as she slowly unbuttoned his fly to free him. Unable to stand it, he closed his eyes and melted their clothes from their bodies.

A light, gentle laugh filled his ears. “You know, that little talent could get you arrested in most states.”

“If you'd like to break out some handcuffs … I wouldn't be inclined to resist that arrest.”

She laughed again as she wrapped her body around his and then rolled him over onto his back. Her eyes dark and hooded, she straddled his stomach, then slid her body down his. Ravyn hissed as pleasure tore through him. The hairs at the center of her body tickled his stomach as her wetness teased him with promise.

His heart racing, he cupped her breasts in his hands as she leaned forward to trace the outline of his jaw with her tongue.

Susan delighted at the sensation of his whiskers prickling her lips. A part of her was appalled that she was making out with a guy she barely knew, and yet she felt as if she'd known him an eternity. There was something about him that called out to her. Something inside her that wanted only to be with him … at least for this moment in time. No, that was wrong. She felt a connection with him. This wasn't just scratching an itch. It was something more.

She didn't know why having sex with him seemed so important, but this was something she had to do.

He ran his warm hands down her back before he lifted her up ever so slightly to stroke her gently between her legs. Susan moaned as she slowly rode his fingers. It'd been so long since any man had touched her like this. She'd almost forgotten just how good it felt.

Wanting to taste more of him, she trailed her lips from his jaw to his chest so that she could lave his nipple. She laughed deep in her throat as she felt chills spread over his body.

Ravyn couldn't think straight as Susan made her way down his body. Her sweet mouth was working the most amazing magick on him as it caused his own magick to swell and increase. Sex always invigorated his kind. He watched as she moved to kneel between his thighs. He reached to brush her hair back from her face only to have her capture his hand in hers and lead it to her mouth.

His entire body burned as she gently suckled his fingers. And when she pulled away, he actually wanted to whimper until she took the tip of him into her mouth.

Arching his back, he buried his hand in her hair as she ran her tongue around him, taking his cock even deeper into her mouth. Something inside him shattered at the sight of her tasting him. It'd never been in his nature to let anyone close to him. And yet he found himself softening for her. She was the kind of woman a man fought for. The kind he kept near him no matter what.

That thought scared him. He was a Dark-Hunter. Women were a passing curiosity for them. A scratch for a biological itch. But as he watched Susan, he realized that he didn't want to walk out of her life. He wanted to spend more days with her like this.… well preferably without people trying to kill them. Most of all, he wanted to get to know everything about her.

Susan paused as she caught Ravyn's hooded gaze. There was something so tender in his expression that it actually made her breath catch. He looked so good lying on the bed, his prone body just waiting for her.

Pulling back, she ignored her stuffy, itchy nose and gave one long, wicked lick from the base of his cock all the way to the tip, delighting in the salty taste of his body. She was on fire for him. He pulled her up his body so that he could kiss her.

She ran her hands over his steely arms, seeking out every dip and curve of muscle. Unable to stand it anymore, she shifted her weight so that the center of her body was pressed against the tip of him. Pulling back from his kiss, she slowly inched herself down his shaft until he completely impaled her.

She ground her teeth at the incredible sensation of his hard length inside her. She lifted her gaze to lock with his as she lifted herself up and then slid back down to take him in all the way to the hilt.

Ravyn growled as pleasure tore through him. He lifted his hips, driving himself even deeper into her as she rode him at a furious pace. His entire body was on fire as he cupped her breasts in his hands.

Susan covered his hands with hers as her pleasure mounted. Never in her life had any man felt so good inside her. She quickened her strokes, wanting to feel him even deeper. And then she felt it … that magical moment when her entire world exploded into white-hot ribbons of ecstasy.

Ravyn growled as he felt her orgasm. His Were-Hunter powers were fired by it, and as they gained strength, his own pleasure built until he joined her release.

Throwing his head back, he groaned aloud. Susan collapsed on top of him, covering his body with hers as they both struggled to breathe.

His entire body covered in a fine sheet of sweat, he held her close, his heart racing, his magick snapping. Her breath fell in gentle puffs against his skin while he held her and marveled at the tenderness she awoke inside him. “That was amazing,” he said quietly.

“You've no idea,” she said as her fingers toyed with his right nipple.

“Oh, I think I do,” he teased, nuzzling her until he had her lips again. The warmth he felt for her both delighted and scared him. He wasn't supposed to feel this way, and especially not toward a Squire. They weren't supposed to touch, and yet he couldn't seem to stop himself.

Susan's eyes widened as she realized that he was already growing hard again. Pulling back, she looked down to see that she wasn't imagining it.

Shocked, she met his evil grin.

“Welcome to the world of the Were-Hunters, baby. We're not like human men.”

“No kidding.…” Before she could move, he sat up with her in his arms.

“Now let me show you how a cat makes love to a woman.”

She stiffened instantly. “I don't do bestiality.”

“Good, neither do I.”

He faced her to the wall and placed her hands there to brace her weight as he nudged her thighs wide apart. Susan turned to see him over her shoulder before he brushed her hair from her neck and nibbled the skin there. Chills exploded over her. What was it about him that made her crave him so?

As he pressed himself closer to her, she could feel his earlier release start to trickle out from her. Until he moved his hand down around her stomach to trail to the center of her. He gently separated the folds of her until he could stroke her.

Susan cried out as her muscles jerked in response to his hot touch. He took a nip of her skin in his fangs an instant before he drove himself deep inside her again.

She clenched her hands into fists against the wall as unimaginable pleasure filled her. He drove himself so deep inside her that she swore he actually touched her womb. His fingers teased her in time to his thrusts while his hot breath singed her neck.

Ravyn closed his eyes as he moved even faster against her. This was a position that most of his kind reserved only for the mating ritual, and he'd never used it with any woman before. He wasn't even sure why he did so now except that he wanted to know just once what it was like to make love to a woman like this.

And he couldn't think of anyone better than Susan to experience it with.

Susan pushed herself away from the wall and leaned back against him as he continued to thrust himself into her. He felt so incredibly good there. She fell back in his arms so that she could reach over her head and sink her hand into his silken hair even though it made her skin itch. He moved his lips so that he could tease her lobe while she massaged his scalp, and chills consumed her. No man had ever felt better. And her body was growing hotter and hotter.

She tightened her grip in his hair an instant before she cried out in ecstasy. Still he kept his hand buried between her legs, wringing out every tremor of pleasure from her body until she fell forward and begged him for mercy.

He moved his hands and then braced them against her hips as he quickened his strokes until he, too, found his release. He kept himself deep inside her as he nuzzled and licked the flesh of her back.

Susan trembled as Ravyn held her while he was still inside her. Their bodies still joined, he pulled her with him down to the mattress.

“You know,” she said as she slowly floated back into her body. “Aside from the allergies, I think I could get used to you being a cat.”

He laughed gently in her ear before he wiggled his hips against hers. She moaned at the sensation of him stroking her deep inside.

Then suddenly the blanket was over them again.

“Ravyn?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think we'll ever get our lives back to normal?”

Ravyn was silent as he considered that. The concept of normal to him was actually laughable. But he knew that wasn't what she was asking him.

She wanted him to tell her that everything would be all right.

“I'm sure you'll get your life back, Susan.” The only problem was that he knew he, too, would go back to being a Dark-Hunter, but after spending this day with her he didn't think that his life would ever be the same again. How could it?

He'd shared things with her that he'd never shared with another living being. More than that, she'd touched a part of him that he didn't even know he still had.

But he also knew that in the end, he was going to have to walk away from her. It was all he could do. He was a Dark-Hunter and she was human.

And that reality broke the heart he thought had died more than three hundred years ago.

*   *   *

Cael jerked awake as a sense of foreboding terrorized him. Amaranda rolled over in bed to stare up at him with her brow furrowed by concern.

“Are you okay, baby?”

He couldn't speak as he tried to pull his dream into his conscious mind. One of his gifts as a Dark-Hunter was the power of precognition.

Yet this vision escaped him completely. Except for one thing that he remembered clearly.

Amaranda's death.

He pulled her into his arms and held her as pain racked him. He couldn't lose her. He couldn't.

“Cael? You're starting to scare me.”

Still, he couldn't speak, not while he saw her dead at his feet. And as in the past, the thought of her death weakened his Dark-Hunter powers. He could feel them slipping, even as he drew personal strength from her.

“Cael?”

“It's okay, Randa,” he said, finally. But inside it wasn't. He'd already lost everyone who'd ever meant anything to him. He didn't want to ever feel that grief again.

And yet what choice did he have?

She was going to die. Their time together was so finite that he couldn't even let himself think about it.

Tightening his arms around her, he laid a gentle kiss on her cheek. “Go back to sleep, love.”

He reluctantly pulled away from her.

She frowned at him. “Where are you going?”

“Bathroom.” Cael pulled up his plaid and wrapped it around his hips before he opened the door and stepped through it toward the bathroom in the hallway.

He'd only taken a few steps when he felt a preternatural frisson go up his spine. He turned just as a door opened on his right to show him a man almost even in height to him. And even though the man had black hair, he oozed the scent and aura of a Daimon.

But unlike a Daimon, this man had swirling silver eyes that Cael had only seen on one other being.

Acheron Parthenopaeus.

“Who are you?”

The man smiled to show him a set of fangs. “Stryker.”

“You don't belong here.”

He arched a brow at that. “I would think, as a Daimon, that I have more right here than a Dark-Hunter does. Tell me, why is the enemy living in peace in a commune of Apollites?”

“That's none of your business.”

“Isn't it?”

Cael started for the Daimon only to have him vanish. Two heartbeats later, he appeared at Cael's back.

“I'm not your enemy, Cael.”

“How do you know my name?”

“I know lots of things about you, including your marriage to Amaranda. More than that, I know what you fear most.”

He curled his lip at the Daimon. “You don't know shit about me.”

“Oh no, that's not true. But tell me something? If I told you there was a way to save her, would you take it?”

Cael's heart literally stopped beating. “I won't let her go Daimon.”

“What if there was another way to save her?”

Dare he even hope for that? “What other way?”

Stryker moved to stand just before him. So close that Cael could feel the heat from his body. “Join my army, Cael, and I will give you the secret you need to keep Amaranda alive as an Apollite past her birthday.”

He cut a suspicious glare at Stryker. “What army?”

“The Illuminati. We serve the goddess Apollymi, mortal enemy of Artemis and Acheron.”

Cael stiffened at those words that asked him to betray two people he owed his loyalty to. “I made my oath to Artemis. I won't go back on it. Ever.”

Stryker tsked at him. “Pity you then. I hope your oath keeps you company after your beautiful wife disintegrates in your arms.”

Cael sucked his breath in sharply as his dream came back to him in crystal clarity and again he felt his powers drain.

Stryker handed him a small medallion. “Think about my offer, Dark-Hunter, and if you change your mind—”

“I won't.”

Stryker gave him an evil smile. “As I said, if you change your mind, use the medallion to call me.”

Cael didn't move as the Daimon summoned a bolt-hole and stepped into it. He looked down at the golden medallion that held a dragon flying in the center of a sunburst. It was the universal sign of the ancient Spathis.

Was the Daimon serious? Could there be a way to save Amaranda's life?

He's lying to you, Cael. Don't be a fool.

But what if he wasn't?

Clenching his fist over the medallion, Cael went to the bathroom, then returned to his bedroom. He stood over the bed, staring at Amaranda, who'd returned to sleep. Her long blond hair was fanned out around her as she lay on her side completely naked.