Blood Legacy: The House of Alexander (34 page)

The shower was part of the waterfall that fell adjacent to the castle, although this small portion pooled above, then flowed right through the structure. Ryan moved to it now, removing her clothing. The frigid water felt exhilarating against her skin, its gentle flow washing over her in small cascades. She reached for the bar of hand-made soap, enjoying its scent and frothy lather.

Ryan became aware of a presence, which did not surprise her, nor did it alter her behavior. She glanced over at Aeron, who leaned against a rock, watching her. She ignored him, continuing her ritual.

Aeron, for his part, was fascinated by the spectacle of the carelessly bathing creature. She was slender but powerfully built, no softness, nor hardness about her either, like some sinewy lioness, supple yet ready to strike with devastating strength. He watched the muscles ripple across her back as she bathed, saw the muscles in her thigh and calf flex as she leaned down, saw the perfection in her boyish hips and small backside. His eyes narrowed.

“Do you mind if I join you?” Aeron asked, his tone casual.

Ryan glanced over at him curiously, just the slightest irritation in her voice. “Suit yourself.”

She turned away from him, not out of modesty, but because she had returned to her bar of soap. It never occurred to her to feel embarrassment, because nudity held no vulnerability for her, nor any relevance.

She did cast a sidelong glance at him as he undressed, more out of curiosity than anything else. The physical body was of interest to her aesthetically. She appreciated beauty and strength, as did all of their Kind. She rarely differentiated between male and female, enjoying the unique aspects of both.

In her sideways assessment, she realized that Aeron was probably the archetype of the perfect male physique. Broad shoulders and a muscular back tapered to a slender waist and slim hips, with powerful thighs and well-developed calves. He was leanly muscular with no thickness about him anywhere. When he turned, she noted his strong chest and ridged abdominal muscles. She turned back to her washing.

Aeron was aware of the scrutiny, and was amused by it. The girl really was an inhuman creature, possessing none of the normal cues that even their Kind retained after a few decades of humanity.

Ryan was trying to wash her back, which normally she had no difficulty doing. But the wound that had been twice opened beneath her ribs caused her pain, and she was having trouble reaching.

“Would you like me to help you with that?”

Aeron’s smooth voice in her ear startled her, as did his proximity.

“I have been bathing myself quite competently for seven hundred years, now,” she said, her slight irritation again on display, “I don’t think I need your help.”

Aeron merely smiled, taking the soap from her hands. He turned her by her shoulders and began lathering his hands. He began massaging the lather into her skin.

The sensation of his hands and the soapy lather against her exceptionally sensitive skin was electrifying. She had to will herself to stand still, wanting to pull away from him and the feelings it aroused. Instead, she stood staidly, patiently, like some great thoroughbred suffering the attention of a stable boy.

For Aeron, the sensations were exhilarating. The feel of her skin beneath his hands and the proximity of her body to his was breathtaking, had he any breath in him. The sight and feel and smell of her was intoxicating. Strangely enough, he felt something stirring within him, something that was quite impossible.

Aeron stopped, and Ryan became aware of his sudden stillness. She turned to look at him over her shoulder. He was looking down, his hands still on her shoulders.

Ryan glanced down curiously. She examined another part of his body, again noting his proportionality. She looked up at him, and he was gazing at her with an indeterminate expression in his blue eyes.

“Does that happen very often?” she asked, the question innocent without naïveté, just a trace amused, but more curious than anything else.

He gazed at her. “It hasn’t happened in over 1500 years,” he said mildly.

She glanced down again, then turned back to her washing. “It looks inconvenient.”

Aeron gazed at the impossible creature in front of him. “Inconvenient” was both an understatement and incredibly accurate. Rhiannon Alexander was “inconvenient” in the same way. He grabbed her shoulders and forcibly turned her to face him.

There was a wicked mischief about her right now as her eyes lingered on the throbbing vein in his neck. Her eyes drifted to his mouth, then to his eyes.

“So are you going to kiss me again?” she asked, more amusement than bite in her words.

And Aeron did just that, biting his lip as his mouth covered hers.

The shock of his blood in her mouth was intensely pleasurable, and Ryan did not resist when the kiss deepened, unable to defy her most primitive instinct. The dark power flowed from his lips into her veins, and Ryan felt her control slipping away.

She turned her head, but he held it fast, gently but firmly guiding her to a new target. Her lips pressed against the throbbing vein in his neck. Although she knew she could not stop the inevitable, she could at least torture him by delay.

Aeron’s frustration was immense as the girl lightly bit him, intentionally failing to break the skin. Her lips feathered the skin, cool against his burning flesh. He forcibly lifted her, carrying her three steps to the cushioned face of a smooth rock, where he pulled her down upon him.

“If you don’t bite me,” he whispered in fury, “I will take every ounce of blood in your body.”

Ryan did not cease her torture of the blood vessel. “I get that a lot,” she murmured.

He tensed and Ryan knew that she had pushed him as far as she could. It wouldn’t have mattered, anyway, for her own hunger was overcoming any self-control she might have had left.

Her teeth sliced into his neck, hard and deep, her lips not letting a single drop of red fall from his skin. He arched and moaned from both pleasure and the sting of her bite. The girl was a monster, a beautiful, seductive, irresistible monster. She shifted her weight, and the feel of her body against his added a level of sensation that strained even his extraordinary senses.

He felt the languor begin steal over him, felt the dark seduction of this One, the invitation to continue into that warm lethargy. It took every bit of his immense willpower to fight the dreamy torpor that was settling on him, the intoxication of the damned.

He wasn’t even certain he could get the girl to stop, so physically powerful was she. But he was strong enough to roll her over, using his superior weight to restrain her beneath him. It took all of his strength, as well as all of his resolve, to pull away from her.

She looked up at him, the preternatural amusement evident.

I will get you sooner or later.

Aeron examined the girl’s features, gathering his strength. “I don’t think so,” he said, lowering his head and violently piercing her neck.

And then he shifted his weight, pinning her, and pierced her again.

Ryan arched from the pain, clutching his back reflexively. It was difficult to determine which was the more painful, the first or second penetration.

For Aeron’s part, he immediately froze. He slowly lifted his head, staring down at the girl in astonishment. It had never occurred to him that she was a virgin. He gazed down at her perfect features, searching both her eyes and mind.

There was no recrimination in her, no need, no want, no shame, no anger, no humiliation, truly, no recognizable human emotion associated with sex at all. The pain was natural to her, forever intertwined with desire. And to Aeron’s growing understanding and wonder, she examined the act as a true innocent, responding as instinctively and unencumbered as a young wild animal passing into sexual maturity, curious and unafraid.

It was the most erotic thing he had ever come across in his entire, immortal life.

As Aeron examined her thoughts, she voiced one of her own.

“I now see how my mother was nearly killed in this act,” she said through slightly clenched teeth.

The comment drove Aeron into madness. He again fell upon her neck, taking her life’s blood into him. But instead of driving into her as he wanted, he moved more gently, methodically, with a gentle, painstaking consistency. If “all” of his anatomy was as altered as that which he knew, he could probably seriously injure the girl.

Ryan felt the pain in her neck increase, but the pain in her body decrease, replaced by a gentle but unrelenting rhythm that was in sharp contrast to the driving rhythm of their blood exchange.

Aeron fed on her, but would not allow the lethargy to take hold, demanding that she take his blood in turn. It was a demand that required little coercion, for her hunger was insatiable. The added level of sensation of the physical union was staggering, creating waves of pleasure and pain that threatened to crush them both.

Slowly, inexorably, the two rhythms began to merge, joining into a single driving force. Aeron felt the girl so perfectly joined with him that it seemed they were one, existing in a primordial union so old it would dwarf the history of this world. Their blood passed from one to the other in a continuous flow, surging through one heart and then the other, driven by the same insistent rhythm. The merging of their physical bodies became almost immaterial, simply one more strand of the web that wrapped about them so tightly it constricted time itself.

Aeron did not know if he would reach climax, having never experienced the act since his Change. He did not know if he could sustain the agonizing peak of pleasure that he and the girl had been at for what seemed days. He thought that if he did reach culmination, it would probably kill them both, for there couldn’t be anything survivable beyond the ecstasy that they had already experienced.

He was wrong.

He and the girl were in the blood-red netherworld, as intertwined in this world as they were in the real one. But here there were waves of blood, flowing over them, lifting them upward, then crashing them downward, tumbling them about, dangerously close to the edge of blackness. The waves carried them back out to the red sea, but each set brought them inexorably closer to that edge.

Aeron knew that he should care, knew that he should release the girl, but he could not. He could not stop his passion, could not stop his rhythm, could not stop holding her. A wave pushed them to the black sand that edged the darkness, where licking flames cast deep shadows. The girl lay there for a moment, waiting languorously for the redness to wash over them again. She glanced into the blackness, unconcerned, then turned to him. He saw the devilish gleam in her eye, the demonic question she was posing to him.

Are you sure you want to mate with the dragon?

Aeron was infuriated and inflamed; he did not relinquish his hold or slow his escalating rhythm in any way. He held her tightly, gazing down, a demonic light in his own eyes.

“My ancient name is Arawn,” he said, his blue eyes gleaming.

The girl smiled, understanding the significance.

“And contrary to any foolish myths that state otherwise,” he said through tightly clenched teeth, “The god and goddess of the underworld are one.”

Rhiannon glanced up at the approaching wave, the face of which seemed to block out the sky. She turned to Aeron.

“I know.”

And with one last great thrust, the wave carried them over the edge and into the blackness beyond.

Aeron semi-awoke, his mind clouded. He was exhausted and disoriented, but not so much that he didn’t glance down to make certain the girl was still in his arms.

She was, completely unconscious, her features in perfect, angelic, androgynous repose.

He tried to concentrate, but his fatigue was too great. He could not process what had happened, why they were both not dead. He knew that they both had gone willingly into the blackness, but somehow had both survived.

The fatigue he felt was crushing, and he felt himself again drifting in and out of consciousness, listing toward the latter. He knew that the sun had crossed the sky several times during their fierce union. He pulled the girl close, knowing he would awaken if she stirred.

As he again fell asleep, he was disturbed by a flash, something less of a memory and more of an impression. He tried to raise his consciousness to analyze the meaning, but instead this last semi-coherent thought left him with uneasy dreams.

He turned in his sleep as the dreams took hold of him, dreams of something cold, something ancient, something prehistorically reptilian. Something that had reached out of the darkness with great hooked claws and arrested the girl’s fall, stopping his descent only because he had been holding on to her.