Bloodchild (12 page)

Joy. Excitement. Need. Smugness.
And yes, of course, love.

Nowhere could Aedan detect the
smallest hint of fear or caution. If anything, Bradan seemed determined to
prove him wrong.

Aedan wished his brother could do
it, that he could get close to the woman he loved and wanted so much and never
even think about her blood or biting her. He wished that, in a few hours,
Bradan would come out full of pride and contentment and tell him, “See? I told
you I wouldn’t hurt her.”

He wished it to be true, but he
didn’t believe it, not for one second.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Danger Night

Vivien hadn’t been listening at
the door—not exactly. She’d been pacing through the sitting room, nervously,
impatiently, excitedly waiting for Brad to come to her as he’d said he would.
If she hadn’t heard raised voices in the hallway, she never would have peeked
out. But once she did, once she saw and heard what was happening, she had to
intervene.

She was sick and tired of Aedan
trying to impose his will on both his brother and Vivien herself. She
understood his reasons for thinking the way he did, but there were two very
important facts he seemed to continually ignore.

For one, she and Brad were adults,
and didn’t need anyone’s permission to have a relationship. For the other, Brad
would never hurt her. If there was one thing Vivien was certain of, it was
that. And she couldn’t imagine why Aedan thought being a vampire would make
Brad any more likely to hurt her. Aedan was a vampire himself, and he had
proven he was ready to put his life on the line for her. Why couldn’t he accept
that Brad was the same?

She felt a thrill at telling off
Aedan, but it was nothing compared to the excitement that coursed through her
when she closed the door on Brad and her, shutting Aedan out.

“He’s not going to come in, is
he?” she asked quietly, wishing the door had a lock.

Brad shook his head. “You ordered
him to stay out. He won’t disobey, not unless…”

“Not unless what?” she asked when
he trailed off, but Brad shook his head again and drew her to him. Rather than
an answer, he gave her a kiss, and Vivien dropped the question.

Wrapping her arms around him and
pushing herself to her tiptoes, she pressed herself against him, enjoying the
feel of his entire body. He’d always been ever so gentle when he held her in
his arms, despite the coiled strength she could feel in every one of his
muscles, and now as always, he held her both as though she were something
fragile and delicate and as though he never wanted to let her go.

Panting, she ended the kiss and
pushed her face into his neck, breathing him in. She carded the fingers of one
hand into his damp hair and slipped the other hand under his shirt to caress
his back. She couldn’t get enough of him, of the feel of him. It had only been
two days, but at times it had felt like two centuries. Judging by how closely
he still held her, he must have felt the same way.

“I missed you,” she murmured,
peppering his neck with kisses. “I missed you so much.”

He turned his head toward her to
press his lips to her temple.

“How could you miss me when I was
right there the whole time?” he teased. “Unless you mean you missed having me
in your bed?”

She pulled back, her hands sliding
down his shoulders until they found his and their fingers linked together. She
looked at him straight on and said very seriously, “Yes, I missed having you in
my bed. And I missed having you around, just you, without a chaperone watching
us the entire time. And I missed channeling with you, and training with you,
and just… being with you.”

Of their own accord, her eyes
turned to the floor, and she could almost see his blood there again, though it
had long since been washed away. She didn’t even know who had cleaned it up.
Doril, probably; there wasn’t anyone else.

“It hurt so much when I thought
I’d lost you forever,” she murmured. “And you’re here, in front of me, but
sometimes it still feels like you’re gone.”

He freed one of his hand and
caressed her cheek with the back of a finger.

“I know,” he murmured. “I…”

He trailed off as though not quite
knowing what to say. Without another word, he pulled her to the circle of
armchairs by the cold fireplace and sat down, drawing her to sit on his lap.
She curled up there, her face against the crook of his neck again as he cradled
her close.

“Part of me
is
gone,” he
said quietly, rubbing a slow hand up and down her back. “Maybe that’s why you
feel that way. I’m here, and I’m still me, but at the same time I’m different.”

With her hand resting against his
completely still chest, Vivien was all too aware of that fact. She’d never feel
his heartbeat again, and how it quickened when she touched him or kissed him. They
wouldn’t share meals anymore. They wouldn’t go swimming in the lake on warm
days and lie on the sun-warmed grass afterward. They wouldn’t channel together
and lose themselves in the loop of their shared feelings. They wouldn’t…

“Do vampires…” The words caught in
her throat, and she had to start again, no louder than a whisper. “Can vampires
have children?”

His hand stilled on her back. She
wondered if he had thought of this before, like she had. She wasn’t ready to
have kids, far from it, but once or twice she had caught herself thinking that,
when she was, if Bradan wanted it too, he would make a good partner and father.

“No,” he said quietly. “We
cannot.”

She didn’t reply. She had feared
as much. She still knew very little about vampires, and most of what she did
know—or thought she knew—came from lore she had picked up on Earth despite not
being all that interested in vampire stories. Half of it had turned out to be
wrong so far, but not this one bit.

“What is it like?” she asked when
he started stroking her back again.

“Being a vampire?” He shrugged
against her. “Not as different as I would have thought, to tell the truth. I
mean, yes, there are obvious differences. The hunger for blood. Sharper senses.
No sunlight. No Quickening.”

That last word came out raspy, and
he cleared his throat before continuing.

“But like I said, I’m still me. I
still feel like myself. And I’m still here with you, so it’s more than worth
it.”

He nudged her head back at that
and gave her a chaste kiss, barely pressing his lips against hers, a far cry
from the fierce kiss they’d shared earlier. It might be worth it to him, she
realized, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t miss the Quickening, or the feel of
the sun on his skin, or the taste of fresh berries on his tongue. She couldn’t
do anything about most of it, but maybe…

She focused on her love for him,
letting the feeling expand in her chest until it could have burst out of her.
Taking hold of the emotion to channel it had become easier and easier since the
first time she’d used the Quickening, and the world turning to shades of gray
around her didn’t seem so strange anymore.

The lake was first to appear,
maybe because it was so clear in her mind, from the soft waves at its surface
glittering under the sun to the path of stones advancing into the water. She
added to the illusion the gentle slope of the grass toward the edge of the
water, the woods on the other side, the sparse trees and bushes.

She ended with the sky, as blue
and luminous as Brad’s eyes when they weren’t silver, a few fluffy clouds
lazily drifting through. She didn’t know if fake sunlight would burn him the
same way real sunlight did, so she deliberately didn’t picture the sun, though
the scene around them felt as though it were high noon.

“We always seem to end up back at
the lake, don’t we?” Brad said softly, and even without looking she could hear
the smile in his voice.

She raised her head anyway, and
found that he was looking at her rather than the illusion she had created for
him.

“If you prefer somewhere else,
just say the word. We could go back to Earth like this. Or to places we imagine
together. Anywhere at all. Anytime you want to be in the sun again—”

He covered her mouth with his
rather than letting her finish and stole her breath away with a kiss that had
nothing to do with ‘chaste’ anymore.

“This is lovely,” he said, pulling
back just enough to be able to speak, “but frankly, I don’t care where I am as
long as you are there with me.”

She closed the half-inch between
their lips again, shifting in his lap so that she was no longer sitting
sideways but facing him fully instead, her knees wedged on either side of his
thighs against the arms of the chair. Her nightgown and robe felt stretched and
uncomfortable over her spread legs but she didn’t care, not when Brad’s mouth
was on hers again, devouring her.

She cradled his head with both her
hands, her fingers weaving through his hair and tugging him a little tighter
against her. His own hands had slid from her back to her waist, and one of them
now slipped inside her robe, moving up over her side until it was cradling her
breast. She gasped when his thumb brushed across her hardened nipple, sending
sparks of need through her entire body.

As her mouth lifted off his, Brad
lost no time and trailed his lips along her jaw then down her neck. He didn’t
linger there, and instead traveled lower still, ducking his head until his
mouth had found Vivien’s other nipple. It was just as needy and eager for touch
as the one Brad kept teasing with his thumb, pushing almost obscenely against
the fabric of her nightgown. His mouth caressed it, and he sucked, soaking the
fabric with his saliva before taking the nub between his lips.

Vivien arched her back to press
harder into his touch, holding back a moan and tightening her fingers in his
hair. She wanted more of that clever mouth of his, more of his hands, more of
him—and the cramped confines of an armchair weren’t helping.

“Brad…” His name passed her lips,
half moan, half prayer. “Take me to bed, please.”

He raised his head and blinked at
her twice, his eyes like silver and yet still full of fire. The look on his
face was one of pure hunger. In a second, he lifted her off his lap and swept
her off her feet and into his arms, his mouth back on hers as he carried her
into her bedroom.

* * * *

Bradan put Vivien down beside her
bed on the plush carpet that would protect her toes from the cold stone floor.
Without a word, he helped her out of her dressing gown. While he turned to lay
it on the chair in the corner of the room, she pulled off her nightgown, so
that when he faced her again, he found her kneeling in the center of the bed,
nude, her hair falling free on her shoulders and her skin glowing from the fire
burning in the fireplace.

For a second, he could have sworn
his heart had started beating again as something stirred in his chest, but no,
it was her heartbeat he could hear, suddenly a little faster. She was gorgeous,
even more so than in his memories, and he could have spent the rest of eternity
watching her, happy to be allowed in her presence. When she raised her hand out
to invite him to join her, he was all too happy to comply.

Unable to wait, he only removed
his boots before climbing onto the wide bed, but even then, he didn’t dare
reach for her. Until this moment, he had tried not to think of Aedan’s warning,
trusting that his love for Vivien would keep her safe. However, she seemed much
more vulnerable in her state of undress, and he was all too aware of how
fragile she was, how easily hurt.

“What’s wrong?” she murmured, a
light frown marring her face as she cupped his cheek with her hand. “You look…
almost scared.”

He covered her hand with his,
enjoying its warmth as well as the comfort it offered.

“I am scared,” he admitted. “What
if Aedan is right? What if I hurt you—”

She shut him off by surging
forward and covering his mouth with hers. It wasn’t so much a kiss as it was
her claiming him, as if he hadn’t always been hers.

“You wouldn’t,” she said
forcefully when she broke away, her eyes piercing him to his very heart. “I’ve
told you before and I’ll tell you again as many times as needed: I trust you.”

There was no hesitation in her
words, no trace of a doubt on her face, and it helped him push back his own
doubts. Aedan was a worrier, and as Vivien had said, he’d tried to keep them
apart from the start. This was just more of the same. It had to be.

He leaned in to kiss her again,
but she allowed nothing more than a quick peck.

“You seem to be overdressed,” she
teased. “And I didn’t realize weapons were a good thing to have in bed.”

It took him the time of a blink to
realize that, yes, he still wore his knives at his belt and on his thigh. He’d
already grown so used to having them with him that he hadn’t even noticed until
now.

“A guard must always be ready,” he
joked.

His mouth turned dry at the sight
of her breasts bouncing when she chuckled.

“I thought that was only for boy
scouts,” she shot back, tugging on his shirt to draw it out of his pants.

He let her pull it over his head
before climbing off the bed again and removing the rest of his clothes as fast
as his nerveless fingers would allow. The entire time, he was aware that she
was watching him, and the hunger in her eyes matched the sweet scent of lust
rising from her, accentuating his own desire. When he joined her again, he wore
nothing more than the silver pendant around his neck and an erection, and
couldn’t stop himself from pouncing on Vivien.

He pushed her down onto the
pillows, his body half covering hers. She sought his mouth at once, but he had
other plans for it, and only lingered against her lips for a short moment
before sliding down her throat. A flare of hunger took him by surprise, and he
hurried away from the blood he could feel pulsing so close beneath her soft
skin.

He peppered her breasts with small,
wet kisses, but while she cupped the back of his head and arched into him, a
clear indication that she wanted him to stay there longer, he continued his way
down, across her stomach and straight to the source of the heady scent that was
flooding his mind. His hands caressed her sides as he went, unable to get
enough of the softness of her skin.